Big Sur, California

I pack up, trying to figure out the most efficient way to do so, and decide that I need to drive around in the dunes a little bit. Why not? I’ve been here before, and know how to do it! Let some air out of the tires and go off-road.

It’s fun, but I have so much stuff in my Jeep, it’s kind of sliding around everywhere when I go over dunes. After ten minutes or so, I figure it’s time to call it quits and head back. Places to go, etc. So I head back and have one last big dune to go over.

I’m driving over it, and feel Tonka (my Jeep’s name, FYI) start to slide to the right. Let me explain why this is a bad thing:

You’re going up a sand hill with little traction, relying on your momentum to carry you over. Spinning your tires really doesn’t do anything. You don’t steer so much as aim, and then roll. If you start slipping sideways, instead of going up and over a hill, now you are going sideways across it. Dunes are STEEP.

Thank God I’ve done this before in my Jeep and ATVs enough to know what to do: Turn in the direction that you’re sliding, and try to do a u-turn on the dune with gentle acceleration. I did this, which was good, because if you aren’t able to do it, you get stuck on the dune at a steep sideways angle. Best case, you get stuck – worst case, you roll. I didn’t want to roll my Jeep on day 2. That would be, besides an expensive mistake, quite embarrassing. For the record, though, I’d have been quite safe: low speed and sand. I’d be fine, but Tonka…

So, I execute the u-turn on the sand dune. Go me. Problem is, I’m now rolling down a hill with no ability to really turn or slow down, and there’s steep 4 or 5 foot hill immediately in front of me. (It wasn’t in the spot where I originally approached the hill; it was at the end of the U.)

I do the best you can do, which is try to go over it. I did this because I knew what was on the side of it, since I came from that general direction. NEVER go over sand dunes without knowing what’s on the other side. They can be a gentle 10% slope, or a steep near 90-degree freefall. It’s really strange how steep some are, while others are so different. Go off the steep ones on an ATV. It’s awesome.

Anyway, problem with steep bumps is that my tires are maybe 18 inches off the ground, so if the bump is more than 2 feet high and shorter than the distance between my tires, it hits the bottom of the Jeep. That means I would get stuck.

I got stuck.

Luckily, I have a shovel, so I got digging. I just had to remove a hundred pounds of sand from underneath the Jeep, leveling it off until all wheels were touching the ground. Once that was done, I could roll off the hill and try to get back again. The wind was pretty bad though, so every time I switched sides to dig out more of the left or right, the wind would have blown some of the innumerable amounts of sand back into the holes I was digging. Good exercise, bad progress.

Luckily, some guy in another Jeep saw me and recognized the Jeep Distress Call. So he used his winch to pull me out, so I didn’t need to dig the whole way. This is good in two ways: I get out, and he gets to justify the winch purchase. I know how Jeep people work. He was thinking, “Yes, perfect! I’ll tell the wife.” Warn winch, supposedly the best ones; he replaced the metal wire with rope, so it was gentler in the hands. Worked like a charm.

Anyway, got back on the road for Big Sur. Words don’t do the place justice. Instead, here’s some pictures. If you’ve never been, go. Find a reason and a time and go drive this. Breathtaking scenery.

(Side note, almost never is flooring the accelerator a good idea when off-roading. Generally makes a bad thing worse, so resist the temptation.)