I was recently driving from Phoenix up into the White Mountains in east-central Arizona on a hot Saturday afternoon. The first half of the trip was uneventful as we started to climb from the valley floor, and temperatures started to cool considerably as we gained altitude. The trip isn’t that arduous aside from the climb of about 7000 feet over the span of 70 miles or so, and I’ve made it a number of times before.
From Great to Bad
However, this uneventful trip quickly turned sour after we reached the mid-point and passed through a small town before heading into canyon country. Steep grades followed by short, twisting descents into canyons put a lot of strain on the transmission, and the warm temperatures probably didn’t help either. As the road started to take us up again, the transmission couldn’t keep up, and the car suddenly stopped moving forward, even when I pushed the gas petal to the floor.
We were able to pull-off into a wide shoulder that people used for sightseeing, and I popped the hood in order to take a look around the engine. It was hot, unusually hot. All of the fluids were full and looking good with the exception of the transmission, which was marginally low. It was hard to believe that such a seemingly-insignificant level could cause it to stop working.
The One Thing We Needed…
I went to the trunk and started to dig through the well-stocked emergency vehicle survival kit. However, the one thing that we didn’t have was transmission or brake fluid. So, we go to plan B, which is to call AAA for an emergency tow. However, because we were in a canyon, our phones didn’t work. Now we’re stuck. Our options were to wait for someone to stop and offer us a hand, or perhaps we’ll be lucky and a cop will pass through.
We sat for about 5 minutes and weighed our options. I didn’t like the vulnerability of being stuck on a pretty-remote stretch of road and having some crazy person pull up to see what’s wrong. I didn’t feel like waiting to see whether or not a cop would show up, and the prospect of waiting another couple of hours after that for the tow truck really started to drive home the magnitude of the situation we found ourselves in.
Exploring Options
So, we started to brainstorm, and that’s when the light bulb-moment hit. We could drive downhill and coast our way back to that little town we passed through earlier. Fortunately, gravity would take us there, and we would be able to assess the situation at a gas station. So, that’s what we did.
However, on the way down, we also noticed that the transmission seemed to be working like normal again. We tested it out on some level spots on the road, and everything looked good. Apparently the low fluid and high temperatures were the problem before, but no harm was done.
Once we reached the gas station, we contemplated whether or not to continue the trip. We figured that we could stop and pull off to the side of the road if the transmission got too hot, and we bought some extra fluid as well. We also weighed that against calling a tow truck and trying to figure out how to reach our final destination. In our minds, there was no really good option, so we decided to keep driving. Fortunately, we didn’t have any other problems, and we made it safe and sound.
This is a classic example of how things have a tendency to go wrong at the worst-possible time, but it also illustrates how there’s always options that we can come up with as well. The key is to avoid getting emotional or panicking in order to assess the situation objectively, which we were able to do. It’s also important to be flexible and adapt to the circumstances at hand. These are basic fundamentals that apply to any survival situation, and they end up being more-useful than any of the gear or supplies that we take with us.
This was a great lesson in the value of being able to remain emotionally-detached during an unexpected crisis. It also illustrates the importance of building up this skill. Remember that how we react to an unexpected problem has a direct relationship with the outcome, and the more that we can keep calm and focused will provide us with opportunities to work through the situation.
