I was telling this tale to my daughter a few weeks ago and realized that I probably should write it down for the archives.
Back in the early 70s, during the big fuel shortage debacle, my husband-to-be bought a foreign car for improved gas mileage. In those days, foreign cars were most always "compact", as was this one. He purchased a Toyota Corolla hatchback station wagon. "Station wagon" sounds roomy, but this one wasn't. It was a COMPACT station wagon, and I was agog that he would buy one...but such were the times.
The Toyota was a manual transmission "stick shift". I had to learn to drive it, but learn, I did. Supposedly, that added to the fuel economy. (I just have no clue why it would.) In any case, we headed out on a two-week camping trip through the American West. The car was packed to the gills, plus we pulled a two-wheel utility trailer packed with our camping gear. Both car and trailer carried our necessary treasures: clothing, tent, sleeping bags, pillows, foam pads, plywood kitchen box, pots and pans, food, porta-potty--basically everything one would have at home. This was a deconstructed house on wheels. I'm pretty sure our gas mileage suffered from that as well as from the altitude of places we went, but we were not to be dissuaded!
We were in Colorado. I had read things about Leadville and wanted to go there. We approached on a highway from the east. In order to get to Leadville on regular roads, we would have had to drive many miles out of our way to the south and back north again. Joe, however, noted a moutain pass--Weston Pass--that could cut a lot of time and miles off the trip. He decided we should try it, in spite of signs that warned that it might not be open. I was a little skeptical but figured he knew what he was doing, so we started UP on Weston Pass.
For those of you who don't know, a "pass" in the mountains means "a way over the top". It does NOT imply a road! What we experienced was...should I say...less than a road. It was mostly dirt. At first, it was fine. We went upward and upward, with the land seeming okay and not a problem. Then, the "road" became ruts and rocks and nothing around. It could not have offered passage for a vehicle coming from the other direction, but that wasn't a problem because we saw not a single other vehicle anywhere around! Then it became steep. Ruts and rocks and steep. Yikes!
The little Toyota did the best it could, under the circumstances, but as we slowly approached the top of the pass, it labored and slugged. Joe kep downshifting. The vehicle struggled to pull the trailer, and we struggled to keep it running before it would stall out. Finally, we were in the lowest gear and praying to beat the band that the car would manage to get us over the top. It didn't look good.
My mind was racing. Perhaps we would need to unload where we were when the car eventually stalled and camp until someone found us. Unbeknownst to me, my spouse's brain was also racing, only he figured we'd need to unhook the trailer, push the car over the pass, then pull the trail over the pass by hand. Neither of us expressed our fears to each other until after the event was over.
How did it turn out? The Toyota labored and groaned and did everything it could to get over that pass...inching along (and I do mean INCHING)...we finally, FINALLY, got over the pass! No emergency measures were necessary, although I'm not sure why, to this day. We arrived in Leadville, in some of Colorado's highest mountains, only a little worse for wear. Praise be!
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