So, back when Motorola was a company that made radios and not cell phones, my job just out of college was driving around the western US, going to remote areas, and auditing telecommuinications sites. For mostly mountain trips, I had a great 86 Bronco to go 4 wheel drive out to these place. I saw some amazing things. Amazing. The Western US is fucking magical in places where there are no people.
But one trip, through New Mexico, they didn't give me the Bronco but told me to take a pool car. Pool cars were Mercury Topazs. Some of these places I had to drive through, even though it was NM, still weren't friendly.
So, anyway, once day, I'm following the directions the local radio service guys gave me to one BFE remote antenna site right along the base of the southern Sangria De Cristos mountains. I'm driving in places a no clearance economy 4 door should be going. As I go along, I see what looks to be a stick just popping up out of the middle of the road. Nothing unusual. So I drive over it. Turns out, it was the root of a small tree trunk, the trunk being horizontal in the ground. So as I drove over the root, it thrust the trunk up into the underside of my car like a fulcrum. Hit right where the fuel pump entered the fuel tank. Boom. Car dead. And I'm at least 10 miles away from any place with people. In the middle of scrub brush, forests, and arroyos. No supplies, no water. No such things as mobile phones. Not yet. Car phones sure but the Zac Morris phone hadn't made it's appearance yet.
So, only thing I can do is walk out, and follow the road back to where I came from as I knew there was a place, with a phone. It was just 10 miles away and I was going to be walking through mostly desert on dirt road NOBODY drives on for 10 miles in 80+ degree temps. I was young.
So, I make it up to this road, this is some forgotten dust-not-dirt backroad that connected Nambe to Las Vegas, NM (not NV). And I start walking.
It's about an hour later, I'm realizing the poor life decision I just made, and I'm about to make another one.
I hear a noise. Holy fuck, it's a car. Out here. No fucking way. I see this cloud of dust kicking up my way coming from the west. Now, keep in mind, it's 1990, I'm a 21 year old kid wearing tight rolled jeans, deck shoes, and a pink and blue polo just huffin' through the backcountry. And up pulls this 1973 boat of a car, rusted to fuck, with 2 local cholos that could easily have been cheech and chong but looked more like every bad mexican drug killer you've ever seen. As strange as they looked to me, I laugh now thinking how I must have looked to these guys. 'WTF is this white boy doing way the fuck out here looking like that?'
Either way, they offered me a ride. Probably saved my life, but just as easily could have wound up being a True Crime story and all they ever found were some bones and my fucking polo shirt.
So, I'm sketched out as fuck but happy for the ride. I had my hand on the handle in case I needed to do a rolling exit. I shit you not. Glad I didn't. That probably would have been a huge fail. Either way, after some convo, I decided to take a chance and break the ice formally by breaking out my bag of weed and putting my awesome joint rolling skills on display.
Rest of the ride was cool as fuck. Weed makes everyone friends. They drove me to this remote bar they were going to in Las Vegas, I hit up a phone, and 2 days later got a tow out of there.
But yeah, that story could have been a lot more different.