Within a month of getting my first Jeep, I was itching to go off-road. Lynn and I were headed to Vegas, and Mojave looked like a great place to try it out. We found what looked like an easy trail just past the Seven Magic Mountains, and I thought, “Perfect. Let’s go.”
Now look, I had done my homework. Watched the videos. Read the advice. People kept saying things like: disconnect your sway bars, air down the tires, don’t go out alone, get recovery gear. And I noted all of it… and then pretty much ignored most of it. I figured this was a basic trail—I didn’t need all that. I did pack some safety stuff: a first aid kit, a couple shackles, a shovel or two. Enough to say I tried. But I was going in light. Basic.
I did get the OnX Trail App, though, which lets you plan on a computer and sync to your phone. It shows trail difficulty—green for easy, blue for medium, red for hard, and white if the trail is unrated. Solid system. Or so I thought. Turns out, on Android Auto, those unrated white trails? They show up with a green border. Which is… misleading. More on that in a second.
So we’re out on this trail. Right away, it’s rockier than I expected. We’re bouncing around, I’m learning in real-time what disconnecting the sway bar and airing down would’ve done. But it’s still fun.
Then we hit a fork. And like a total noob, I decide to take what looks like a shortcut. It’s green-bordered on the screen, so I think, “Sweet, easy route.”
What I didn’t pay attention to? The elevation lines. A lot of them. The kind that say, “You’re not going around the mountain—you’re going over it.”
At first, it just gets a little rougher. Then rougher. Then kind of sketchy. It’s that frog-in-hot-water thing—you don’t notice how bad it’s getting until suddenly, you’re boiling. There’s a spot—right at that little diamond on the map—that’s the one. That’s where it hit me.
I stopped the Jeep, looked at the trail ahead, and said out loud, “Oh f**k, what the hell am I doing?” Then I turned to Lynn and said, “I’m afraid.” And she said, “So am I. Maybe we should go back.”
But here’s the problem: I couldn’t turn around. The trail was too narrow. I wasn’t about to try it in reverse. We were committed. The only way through was forward.
Right then—like right in that moment—my phone, which wasn’t connected to cell or streaming anything, shuffled to How Great Is Our God by Chris Tomlin. And I got this flood of calm, like a voice saying, “You’re gonna be okay.” That moment stuck with me.
The road didn’t magically get better right away, but we made it through. Slowly, carefully, and fully locked into the adrenaline rush.
We snapped a photo (check it out), and later that night, over dinner at Emeril’s New Orleans Fish at the MGM Grand, I turned to Lynn and said, “I don’t believe we did that.” And I meant it. It was a blast—and a full-on learning experience.
Still buzzing from the ride, the adrenaline, and the fact that we made it out. I turned to Lynn and said, “I don’t believe we did that.”
What I learned
- A shortcut isn’t always a shortcut. Stick to the plan.
- Pay attention to how tech displays things—it doesn’t always translate.
- Maybe next time, do the things everyone says to do.
- Don’t stress too much. You’ll probably be okay.
Post-Script: A Week Later
Less than a week after that trip, I had a meeting with my new CEO. We were talking about the future of the company—new leadership, industry headwinds, a lot of change. And he could tell I wasn’t totally confident. That’s when I said it again: “I’m afraid we can’t do it.”
Here’s the thing—I don’t say “I’m afraid” very often. Twice in one week? Once in the Jeep, once in a business meeting? That hit me. It brought me back to that moment on the trail. To the music. To that sense that it was going to be okay.
Turns out, that first Jeep trip wasn’t just about off-roading. It was a reminder: when the road gets rough and there’s no turning back, sometimes the best—and only—way through is forward.
Leave a Reply