Land Between the Lakes had already bested our hearty camping group once before. Between camping in the wrong area amongst rednecks with generators that ran constantly, side-by-sides with loud exhausts and light bars designed to shine all the way to Mars, and a lake that somehow grew in size and flooded our camping spot in the middle of the night, we had a miserable first experience at Land Between the Lakes. But my friend Brad, with his reliable off-roading machine, wasn’t ready to give up on it yet as a viable trail-riding spot, and so myself and fellow campers Sawyer and Jordan were convinced to join him on yet another over-landing trip to Land Between the Lakes. It had to be a better experience than last time, right?
Well…no. In fact, I’m pretty sure this time was worse.
Brad was going through a rough time at work, putting in long hours and making up for coworkers who recently left and weren’t replaced yet. He needed a getaway in the worst way. I had gone camping with Brad several times at this point, getting to drive his ‘08 Lexus GX 470 (basically a Toyota Land Cruiser) through some tricky trails before, so going with him was a no-brainer for me. Sawyer had also been with us before and was glad to come-with, but this would be Jordan’s first time to go over-landing with us.
We met at the church building in Franklin, a central location for all of us, and proceeded to pack the GX tighter than a Conecuh Sausage. A quick trip to Kroger for a few last-minute essentials (like root beer), and we were on the road to Kentucky. Land Between the Lakes is just across the Kentucky border, with Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley stretching down into parts of northwest Tennessee. The drive was only about two hours or so.
Brad wears his signature orange aviators as we drive to Kentucky. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
As we rolled into the park, I asked, “Do we need need a permit to camp here?”
“I don’t think you do for primitive camping,” said Brad.
I have trust issues, so I looked it up on my phone, which amazingly still had service. In fact, we did need a permit. If we were caught building a fire without a permit, we could be fined by Smokey Bear and his suspiciously Sam Elliott-like voice, or even jailed! (okay, I made that last part up, but we could be fined). I informed my fellow campers, who were more anxious to explore than settle our overnight accommodations, but I convinced them to take the fifteen minutes it took to pay the individual permit fees and get it over with.
With the threat of park eviction neutralized, we proceeded to nose our way down some wooded trails that wound around the lake. Most trails ended at the water’s edge, where we would get out and explore a bit on foot by the shore, then get back in the GX and go find something else interesting.
Jordan stands on a rocky point, overlooking the lake. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
The gang stops for a moment to inspect the shore. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
One such interesting place we found was the remnants of some old building that once stood, maybe before the TVA created Kentucky Lake. This part of Kentucky really isn’t that remote, just rural. As such, it seems like a rite of passage for young hoodlums with nothing better to do to run around and make mischief. The foundations of the old building were covered in graffiti, which I actually kind of admire (minus the whole “illegal” aspect). The abandoned commode sitting next to the graffiti, however, was just tacky.
Strange goings-on in the woods. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Something about the abandoned junk and graffiti drove us to explore even further out. Brad especially didn’t want to go where just anyone could go. If we were still close enough to civilization that people were abandoning plumbing fixtures, we were too close. So we jumped back into the GX and looked for more trails.
Brad has always been kind to share the GX with other people. Whenever we came across a trail with a few tricky spots, he was happy to let someone else take the wheel and try out the GX’s capabilities. Often we ran across deep, craggy ruts like small canyons of red clay, or mud puddles, which we get out and inspect. Then the new driver negotiated the obstacle with a little help from the spotters outside. Obstacles are part of the fun if you’re into over-landing. Fallen tree? We’ll yank it out of the way with the GX. A little mud? The GX has locking differentials to pull us through. Meth lab? The GX has a steering wheel and we can turn around and go back the way we came.
We definitely had our share of mud and fallen trees (no meth labs; that was hyperbole). Brad had these handy “snatch straps”, which are like big tow straps with some elasticity to them that allowed us to pull on very heavy objects without shocking the vehicle. More than once, we came across a fallen tree blocking the trail that was maybe six inches in diameter, and managed to pull it out of the way in only a few minutes. Away from societal norms and disapproving mothers, four grown men can easily turn into four little boys, and it gave us a great, childish pleasure to step on the gas and drag a big ol’ tree several hundred yards down a wooded trail.
Removing a tree from the path. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Things were going smoothly until we came to a rather benign-looking puddle fairly deep into one of the trails. The dirt path opened up to a wide spot, wide enough for two cars to pass. But to one side was what looked like a muddy pond, and the other side was slightly tilted. Having just come crashing through several other muddy spots on the trail, it didn’t seem like a dangerous spot. Nevertheless, we got out and looked at it. I ran a stick into the muddy water and discovered that the puddle was much deeper than the other places we’d just gone through, maybe eighteen inches deep. My vote was to go around the puddle on the drier ground. But Brad was concerned about the angle of the trail. Recently, he had ventured out with his buddy Alex, who also has a GX, on some difficult trails and nearly flipped the top-heavy Lexus on several occasions, so he eyed the trail’s camber with suspicion.
We went back and forth for a while, arguing over which was best.
Eventually, I said, “It’s your call, Brad. It’s your machine.” Some part of me must have been afraid of making the wrong call insistently and flipping a car that belonged to someone else.
“I’m going through it,” said Brad.
As he inched forward over the edge of the puddle, the GX suddenly fell deep into the ooze, to the surprise of us all. Brad stopped. The engine was still running, but the radiator fan could be heard slapping at the invading water. Brad got out to look at the situation, which had unfolded in no time at all. He shook his head in dismay.
The GX 470 as it lay stuck in the mud. Photo courtesy of Jordan Kinard.
For the next five hours, we attempted to pull the GX from it’s quagmire with every trick we could think of. Jordan piled rocks and sticks behind the tires, both front and back (the GX is all-wheel-drive). Two of us hopped up and down on the back bumper while the driver gunned the throttle, hoping for a little traction. We even tried a trick I had seen on an episode of MacGyver, where a big stick was fed through a rope to lift a giant dugout canoe off of a woman pinned underneath. To my credit, the MacGyver trick did inch the GX a little further out of the mud.
But it nearly broke my arm.
As time went on and we got more desperate, we wound the big stick tighter and tighter through the snatch strap, which we used instead of a rope. Sawyer and I were positioned on either side of the stick, handing it to each other while Jordan stepped on the gas, sending plumes of carbon monoxide into our faces. With the the snatch strap tight as a banjo string and the force of the stick coming back at us with spooky force, one of us slipped, and suddenly my arm was caught between the strap and the stick.
Fire coursed through my arm. It felt like it was in a vice, or like I’d just been hit with a baseball bat.
“BRAD! BRAD!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
Brad, who had been monitoring the traction at the front of the GX, came barreling over to my aid. He and Sawyer managed to relieve the pressure enough to get my arm out, which I feared was broken. Immediately, I walked off down the trail trying to “walk it off”, rubbing my arm, my heart throbbing as blood rushed to the problem area. As I glanced over my shoulder at the wreckage, I saw Brad on his butt in the mud with the stick spinning around dangerously, like the propellor on a rubber band-powered airplane. Thank God, he didn’t get hit in the head.
Sawyer takes the wheel. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
My arm wasn’t broken, but at that point I was done trying to get the car out. Everyone except for Jordan felt defeated. Jordan doggedly refused to give up, and never stopped piling rocks and sticks behind the tires in new ways in an effort to exhume the GX from its watery grave. I admired his outlook, but couldn’t bring myself to share it. Brad called his friend Alex in Smyrna, Tennessee and explained the situation to him, begging for a rescue. Alex graciously said he would be there in the morning.
The wind picked up as we set up camp. By now, darkness had set in, and distant lightning flashes lit up the sky ominously. The forecast had not originally called for storms, but apparently the meteorologists missed the mark. Jordan and I shared a tent, which we pitched right on the trail by the GX. After nursing the scraped up place on my arm with a little iodine and a few bandages, we had just enough time to cook a few bratwurst over a small fire before a deluge blew in.
Basically, we slept through a thunderstorm at the top of a ridge in Kentucky that night. I prayed several times through the night that nothing would happen to us. Jordan was legitimately concerned that a tree would fall on our little tent while we slept, and considered joining Brad, who was sleeping inside the GX, half submerged though it was. Originally, Brad intended to sleep in the pop-up tent he installed on top of the GX, but in our current situation, he thought it best not to mess with it.
The GX on the trail. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Again, thank God, we “slept” through the night with no further injuries or loss of gear. Jordan and I woke up first, and heated up some coffee on his handy little Jetboil inside our tent, while the others snoozed. The others woke up half an hour later. Sleep deprived and low on morale, we made a fire to heat up some breakfast while we waited on Alex to arrive. As Mama would say, we looked “like the day after the night before.” But as we got something to eat and relaxed around the campfire, the sun started to peak out for the first time since we left Franklin, and everything began to feel new and hopeful.
Brad tends a fire after our miserable night. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Around nine that morning, Alex came splashing down the trail in a nearly identical Lexus GX 470. It was the first time we’d seen another human since we left the main road. Alex exhibited no fear as he piloted his Lexus through the same spots we so cautiously maneuvered the day before, confident, like a seasoned veteran. In about twenty minutes, Alex had rescued us from our dire strait. Using his own snatch strap, he fastened one end to his GX and the other to Brad’s GX. Starting with several feet of slack in the line, he made a running go down the trail in the opposite direction and plucked our car out of the mud with shocking ease.
We packed up the GX quickly, and began riding trails again, trying to make up for lost time yesterday as well as make the trip worth Alex’s while. As we crossed a low-water bridge through a creek, the trees opened up into a beautiful meadow of wildflowers, nestled in a hollow between ridges. It was now about noon, so we decided this would make a great place to have lunch. Jordan set out his folding chair while Sawyer went to go skip rocks in the creek. We made a few turkey sandwiches on Sara Lee bread and washed them down with some root beer, the kind that come in the glass bottles. It was balm to the soul after the night we had.
The two GXs stop for lunch by a creek. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
A meadow of wildflowers spreads out in a cozy little valley. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Our journey through Land Between the Lakes came to an end as we drove through a waterfowl preserve. Jordan impressed us all with his knowledge of the graceful birds, rattling them off one by one. His father carves extremely detailed wooden ducks as a hobby, and used to quiz his children as they drove down the road, growing up in Florida. Somehow, the preserve was a fitting and healing end to our traumatic night.
Sawyer stares ahead with fatigue as we exit the park. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Brad gets a few refreshments at a gas station on our way out of Kentucky. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
The ride home was a quiet one. We were all tired. But there was a kind of bond made between Brad, Sawyer, Jordan and I. The kind of bond you can only achieve when you haven’t killed one another after a trying experience. In hindsight, better planning, better equipment, as well as exercising restraint in the face of difficult obstacles would have prevented our misadventure, but it was a learning experience for all involved. And like it or not, we don’t improve by having it easy all the time. I guess the four of us are just that much better at over-landing now than we were before.
Maybe the third time we go to Land Between the Lakes won’t be so bad.
Muddy handprints on the door after attempting to exhume the GX from the mud. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
Jordan looking muddy and cool as he sips a drink at the gas station. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.
A parting photo of Kentucky Lake. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Kodak Portra 400.