Field Week of Doom Part 1: A Tragic Comedy

At the beginning of this year, I dubbed 2011 the year of technical difficulties, and it hasn't slowed down since then.  I thought I could get away from it all by getting out of the city for a while, but apparently the curse of 2011 follows me wherever I go.

Last week was my first of what was supposed to be 14 weeks of mapping and digging holes in the woods.  My motivation for doing this has been dwindling for some time now, but I tried to convince myself that this year would be different.  That I would do some good work and show everyone what I really can do.  Unfortunately, fate had other plans for me.

It started out as a normal field week.  The intern (henceforth known as Egghead) and I drove down to the forest.  Let me stop here to mention that I HATE driving, especially to new places, and try to avoid it all costs.  So I was happy to learn that Intern Egghead had just completed his defensive driving course and would be able to drive us to our campsite and wherever else I wanted to go.

We went down on a Monday morning, and the following two days proceeded as usual, that is until late Tuesday afternoon.  I finished describing four holes for my mapping, which is usually about the number that two people can get done in a day.  It was still early but late enough that we couldn't finish another hole so I decided to do some recon instead.  I wanted to explore a particular road, so we headed down to take a quick look and I was just about to give the go-ahead to turn around when Egghead decided it was a good time to get stuck.

Well, he didn't consciously decide it, but for some reason that I still don't understand he started driving in some deep ruts in the road rather than taking the high ground and no sooner had he done that when we completely came to a stop.  For two hours, he tried to dig us out of the sandy buildup beneath the truck, saying things like "just five more mintues," "just ten more minutes."  I began to grow very tired of this by the time we reached the end of our trip. Finally, I decided to get on the radio and call dispatch to get someone to come pull us out.  After I did that, we began a two hour walk back to our campsite.

The walk back was quiet and felt like an eternity.  I was visibly pissed and may have sassed Egghead a bit, because I do that when I get upset.  It was around 10pm when we finally made it back and I was starving.  It was Egghead's turn to make dinner but when we got back he said, "Well, I'm going to bed now.  Goodnight." And went off to his tent.  Thanks a lot, dude.  We were staying at a fire base, so I went to the kitchen to make myself a salad, and talked to a girl who was also staying there, studying elk for her PhD.  I told her what had happened and she offered to help pull us out in the morning, if we were willing to get up at 5:45 am.  I decided to try getting a hold of dispatch again to check on their progress, but was seriously considering her offer.

After I finished my salad, I went outside and a fire truck pulled up, saying they had been sent out on a call from the radio and did we know of someone who needed help.  I said yes, that was me, and we still do need help, so I woke up Egghead and got Elk Girl to drive us back to our truck, while the firefighters followed.  They were able to pull us out fairly easily and we made it back to the campsite sometime around 11:30 or 11:45.  I called dispatch to say that we were back at camp with our vehicle, and thanked them.  Then I went to bed.

I thought that would be the end of it.  But I was wrong.  I was so, so wrong.