Youthful Endeavors
Remember when you first got your driver’s license? That initial sense of independence and freedom. Acting like you have it all figured out while knowing that you’re running low on money, driving a questionable vehicle fueled with nothing but hopes and dreams. Hopefully you were heading to work, but we know that was not always the priority at that time. Youth is a time to develop yourself; to find your place in the world. To try new things and discover what works and what doesn’t. To learn from those discoveries and grow. Did you learn good lessons or hard lessons? Did you have positive influences in your life or did you grow up with great examples of what not to do? How did you handle those challenges? How have those life lessons influenced your life now?
Growing up, my father was a carpenter who loved to go hunting and fishing at every opportunity. He was also a gifted artist and storyteller. I spent much of my youth at his side on many construction sites, in the woods hunting, and on the lakes fishing. It was a great way to grow up and he helped develop my lifelong desire to explore and go on great adventures. My path, however, is less focused on hunting and fishing and more on traveling and exploring. I remember one such adventure, the summer of 1991. My friend Craig and I planned to complete a 600+ mile weeklong road trip of exploring and adventuring before I started my senior year of high school. The plan was to drive my truck up to Baudette Minnesota to his family’s hunting cabin and explore the area. It was our first big independent road trip. We were driving my “trusty steed”, a 1978 Chevy ¾ ton pickup with a homemade topper that I constructed out of salvaged camper windows and leftover home building supplies. It had a full see through plexiglass roof, and a wood frame wrapped in rubber roof material. It was ugly, hot, and heavy but I was proud of my monstrosity.
Amazingly, we made it to his cabin without issue only to find out he didn’t have the keys to get in. We just had enough money with us to cover gas and some food and were counting on the cabin as a base station for our adventures. We could’ve camped out in the topper if needed, but sleeping in a portable greenhouse in mid-July wasn’t the kind of adventure we were looking for! Thankfully, Craig’s parents sent a card with us to cover a hotel room for one night if needed, which was great forethought and greatly appreciated. The next day we headed out to explore the area around Baudette with my truck. We were having a great time until Craig flicked a caterpillar at me while telling me it was a bee. Freaking out, I promptly drove off the gravel road right into a swamp! It was like landing on a soft pillow. We were hopelessly stuck and an hour from any town. Now, being young and so “smart” the only recovery gear I had with me was an old cable come-a-long of my Dad’s. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much help in the middle of a swamp. So, there we were, stuck in a swamp an hour’s drive from civilization without any ideas on how to solve our “little problem”. Thankfully, a couple of older ladies who were out in the woods picking berries, drove by on their way back to town and had room for one person. Craig hitched a ride with them while I waited with the truck. About 3 hours later Craig showed up with a tow truck. It was a good thing the berry pickers drove by when they did because I didn’t see another living sole the whole time Craig was gone. Once the tow truck saved us from our predicament, we paid the man from our quickly depleting stash of cash and we were on our way again. We arrived back in town late in the day and found a campground for the night. Unfortunately, as we tried to get some rest in the sweat box, a local skunk decided to spray the forest. The hot and humid night air caused the smell to linger with unbelievable persistence. We found our limit! We counted what little cash we had left and determined that we had just enough for one more night at the hotel and gas money for the ride home. Our “great adventure” ended days earlier than expected. Looking back now I think it’s amazing that we made it there and back home in the first place. Now I see how completely unprepared we were for the unexpected challenges that life presents us with on a regular basis. Thankfully, I have mostly learned from my past mistakes and I am generally better prepared for the unexpected now.
My quest for exploration and adventure didn’t diminish as I became the proud father of three lovely daughters. Neither did the influx of new material for campfire stories. My daughters grew up riding around in the back of my Jeep and helping around the shop as I built and re-built the Jeep several times. When it came time for drivers training, all three of the girls first learned to drive in my 2010 Jeep Wrangler (Sven) with a manual transmission. I figured the manual transmission would provide them with a better understanding of how a vehicle operates and help build a solid driving foundation for the future. Except for my oldest daughter Morgan, who is more of an indoor person, Rylee and Aubrie both enjoy exploring and trail driving with me. They are both capable of helping repair a vehicle when needed and both are accomplished, capable off-roaders. Sure, they both have more to learn, but they know far more than I did at their ages. Next year we are going to build up a very lightly modified and very rusty 93 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Mainly add bumpers, rock sliders, and skid plates. The idea is to get them driving a fairly stock vehicle to help further improve and develop their driving, recovery, and repair skills, because a stock vehicle with small tires is much more likely to end up stuck or broken on the trail somewhere. Think back to your first 4x4 truck; how you thought you could go anywhere and getting stuck was just an afterthought. Think of all the valuable lessons you learned when you got yourself in a predicament or two along the way.
As parents, we want to guide our kids on the right path. Help them avoid making the same mistakes that we made as kids. Help them get a jump start on life so they can be the best versions of what God created them to be. The challenge is, those youthful drivers like to make their own decisions about where they are going and what they are doing. They like to go their own way which is not always on the same path that their parents would choose for them. Some of those kids like to consistently learn the hard way despite all the good advice we provided them with along the way. Sometimes, our kids like to do the same things we do! This can be good or bad depending on what we are into. Are we providing a good example for them to follow? Are we showing them what it means to be a constructive contributing member of society? What example did your parents set for you, and what path did you end up choosing to take? Ultimately, we each must pick our own path for our lives. We must choose the person, the family member, the friend, and the parent we want to be. Let’s be an example for those around us that we can be proud of. Build people up and encourage them to learn from their mistakes. Even harder, sometimes you must let them fail for them to learn. It’s ok to try and fail. It’s all about what we learn from those failures and how we grow and develop moving forward. Help those young drivers adapt and overcome the challenges that life throws at them. Don’t fix it for them or they won’t learn and grow. They need to learn how to take a step back, evaluate the situation, make a plan, and move forward. In life and on the trail.
Aaron Bjorklund
One more youthful story…
This story takes place less than two years after the one above. I was still driving the same truck, except this time I was going to college in Ely, MN. The glorious homemade topper was retired by this point. It was a cool and sunny afternoon in the fall. I wanted to get out of the dorms for a bit, so I decided to take a scenic fall drive and explore an area north of town. I couldn’t venture out too far because the automatic transmission in my truck had previously lost 3rd gear, and the top speed of the truck at the time was reduced to about 35 MPH. I was a poor college student and couldn’t afford to fix the transmission, nor did I have the knowledge to fix it myself. So, I just used the truck to run around town and pick up groceries and stuff. I was getting stir crazy at the dorm, which is why I decided to go exploring. Things were going well until I decided I should head back to town. I found a nice hayfield where I decided to turn around. I thought I would pop in the far field drive; drive across the field, and exit the South entrance to the field. What I found in the middle of this nicely mowed field was an underground spring. My truck broke through the grass layer on top and promptly sunk down past the vehicle frame. I was just idling across the field and was stuck before I realized what happened. The mud under the grass layer was the consistency of thick chocolate pudding. I had to put the truck in 4 low just to get the tires to turn because of the suction power of the mud. I got out of the truck to assess the situation and found the strangest thing. The ground level was just under my door height, and I stepped out onto grass, not mud. Yes, there was that awful pudding mud around each tire, but the truck was sitting on grass. If I tapped the grass with the toe of my foot the grass layer would flutter like a wave in a pond. I walked to the back of my truck and found the ground was solid just past the rear of my bumper. I found the only soft spot in the whole field, and it wasn’t much larger than my truck. It was the first and only time that I have seen those fluid-like conditions just under a grass layer. I would guess that it wasn’t always like that because you could tell the field was mowed for hay and there weren’t any ruts or in that area. So, there I was, stuck in the middle of a hayfield north of town. This was long before I had a cell phone and I was the only person that knew where I was. There wasn’t anything that I could do so I started walking back to town. It was a good thing that my truck had a limited top speed because I wasn’t that far from town. The next day, I found a classmate with a truck, and we headed back out there to try to recover my truck. Well, all that we accomplished was a broken strap. I don’t think my truck moved at all. We thought maybe we had a batter chance with more vehicles. We gathered some more trucks and hooked up to it with three vehicles. We did succeed in making it wiggle this time, but the land anchor still won. We headed back defeated. I called around to see if I could find a tow truck to come out there. Only one guy in town was willing to tow it. It took me another three days and many favors to gather enough cash to pay the tow driver for the tow. We headed out the next morning to get my truck. We found that the ground was still fluid like under the grass, and the mud we previously stirred up around the truck had worked its way around the axles and into the frame. The truck was almost part of the earth by this point. It was locked in there so completely that I couldn’t get the tires to move at all even in 4 low. The tow truck driver looked at it and ask me one question, “Is the trailer hitch well attached to the frame?” it was, so he proceeded to connect his boom cable to a drawbar in the back of the hitch. He reeled in the cable until the front of the tow truck was about five feet in the air and just waited. Very slowly the weight of the tow truck broke the suction of the mud on the back of the truck and lifted it out of the mud. Once all the tires of the tow truck were back on the ground he climbed back in his truck and pulled my mud laden truck out of the mud hole. It was an elegant recovery process, and I was and still am very impressed by how easy he made it look. He towed it back to his shop because I wanted him to look at it to see if I wrecked anything from it sitting in the mud and water for 4 days. He called me back in a few days to tell me that I didn’t wreck anything, but the whole front end needed to be rebuilt. Everything was loose and he didn’t recommend driving the truck until it was fixed. Considering that it took me three days to come up with enough money to cover the tow, an extensive vehicle repair wasn’t in the budget. Besides, it already needed a transmission and was so rusty that it was held together with license plates and 2x4s. I ended up selling the truck to a classmate for $150 and have been missing that truck since the moment he drove it away. If I only knew then what I know now. That truck still contained many usable parts and would have been a wonderful platform for a great trail rig.
“The Most Profound Off-Road Vehicle Modification!”
“Breaker, Breaker Is There Anyone Out There?”
“Recommended Recovery Equipment for Off-Raod Adventures”
www.MN4WDA.org