This weekend I decided to go down to Pueblo, CO and visit my Aunt and Uncle. After leaving my house in Arvada at 5:15am I eventually arrived at my Aunts house at 7:30am. Soon thereafter we got in my Jeep and took a mini trip to the area of Vigil, Weston, Stonewall, Zamara. That area is located just west of Trinidad and its where a lot of my distant family is from. We took the more scenic route from Pueblo by heading through the town of La Veta on our way to Stonewall. We explored the many small towns in that area and ended the scenic drive by going to a settlement on the western edge of Trinidad Lake State Park.

And this is where the story begins to get interesting….In order to get to the settlement we had to cross a small stream/creek, depth of about 30inches at the deepest with a span of 12ft or so. At first it seemed that my Jeep was making it but as we were getting out the Jeep stopped in its tracks. We thought at first that something got wet and we needed to just wait until it dried off. At which point we decided to walk to the Settlement while we hoped my Jeep would dry off.

Once we walked around the settlement for a bit we went back to the Jeep. It now seemed that the wind was really picking up and we decided to try it again…once again the Jeep just went chk chk chk… and so we called for help. Luckily we had cellphone service and a flatbed tow truck showed up shortly after that. When the kind tow truck driver  arrived he said we had a few options…(1) Hook my Jeep up to the flatbed tow truck by attaching it to the frame underneath, which was then under the cold mountain waters or (2) He’d have to get a wrecker and find a place to cross and pull my jeep out and go back through with my Jeep in tow. My uncle and I decided to try the first option by going in the cold waters and attempting to hook up the chains to the underside of my Jeep. After 10mins or so of trying we figured it to be too difficult with the conditions.

At that point we decided that he should go back to Trinidad and get the wrecker. Seeing that I was shaking because of the cold waters I elected to go with him. Once we arrived back to where my Jeep was my Uncle said that it was starting to turn but it might need a jump. After a few tense moments the Wrecker made it across the stream next to my Jeep and eventually pulled out my Jeep. Once we got a jump from the wrecker the Jeep finally started up, albeit on the opposite side of the bank. After a few times starting up and clearing the exhaust we decided to have the wrecker drive across first with the Jeep going second. My uncle drove it across as I was still on the opposite bank. He went slow and it made it just fine. Overall it made for an interesting story and we eventually ended up back in Pueblo at 9:00PM.

2-day/1-night trip total: 500miles