Whoa Baby!!! It's muddy

Whoa Baby… I went out today to drive around a new hunting lease that I have been considering. Problem is we had a hell of a thunder storm last night and I didn’t realize how much it had rained. I get out to the country and am on some back gravel roads driving around. The ditches on both sides of the road were full and flowing pretty fast, but the road was in gravel and in pretty good shape. I came upon a couple of fallen trees along the way so it must have been pretty windy last night too, but I was able to drive over the branches of the fallen trees.

When I’m about two miles from nowhere, the road goes from gravel to dirt. Well guess what? I did not notice the change in time and the next think I know, my Explorer is sideways and I’m getting ready to go for a swim. Well I managed to straighten out and swerve back and forth a couple of times and then I got into a rut left by someone else and straightened out. So I’m driving down the road thinking, hmmm, if I stop, I’m stuck, so I can’t go back. But maybe the road gets better. About that time the rut I’m in swerves into the ditch so I have to plow through the thick mud straight ahead and I swerve a little more until the rut comes back on the road. I guess someone had been out earlier than me in a four wheel drive vehicle. If I had gone in the ditch, I would have needed a tow truck and I’d be damn lucky if I could even get one to out this far.

Well, finally the road goes back to gravel and I’m thinking that I am home fee, but just ahead, I see another fallen tree and about the top 1/3 of the tree is across the road. It looks like mostly 1 to 3” branches so I just plow right over it and finally get to a side road that joins the highway.

The amazing thing is that my Explorer does not have four wheel drive. Thankfully, it does have positive traction rear wheel drive and that is what kept me moving through the mud. If it were a standard differential, I would have been stuck as soon as I hit the mud. My next vehicle will be a four wheel drive!!!