TALES FROM THE TRAIL: EARLY DESERT BREAKDOWNS: Dale Van D.
Spring of 1949 found me spending occasional weekends 4-wheeling the bajadas that drained the Marias, McCoys, Palens, and other desert ranges near Blythe, where I was a 15-year-old sophomore at Palo Verde Hi. In those days, one could get a driver's license at 14 if one lived on a ranch & one's parents signed for you. I'd learned to drive in a surplus WWII jeep on our 40 acres, and used dad's Dodge WWII surplus command car, a very high clearance 4WD pickup with many design flaws. One problem was that Chrysler engineers had put the fuel pump next to the exhaust manifold, which led to frequent vapor locking. Usual cure was for all on board to urinate on the fuel pump & manifold!
Anyway, this spring, I drove around the North end of the McCoy range, then South, picking up ironwood to burn in the family fireplace. Boiled the radiator dry, after using up all the spare water to feed the radiator. Darkness fell with no water, no food, no extra clothing, & double-digit mileage to the nearest paved road - and my parents didn't know where I had gone in the desert! I considered trying to find the elusive spring in the west-central McCoys, but knew it might be dry, so, I did find a kitchen match or two under the seat of the truck & gathered wood & lit a tire. It was late March or early April, and bitterly cold, so I tended the tire all night, dozing on occasion. A desert fox came within perhaps 15 feet to check it all out. At first light, I drew "DALE" in letters perhaps 6' high in the desert hardpan, with a big arrow pointing South, then started walking S toward Hwy 60/70, later to be I-10. It was nearly noon, and I'd been without water for some 20 hours as the search plane flew over, 300' above the desert floor. I took off my white T-shirt & waved it frantically. The plane flew off with no sign of recognition. I sat down & cried, then got up & kept trudging south toward the highway. About an hour later, a Riverside County Sheriff's dept jeep drove up. I was overjoyed & downed a couple of quarts of water. Sadly, the strain of an all-night search started my dad smoking again. He died at lung cancer in 1968 at 62. The Palo Verde Valley Times front-paged tile incident "Local Boy Lost in Desert!" I complained vociferously; I knew exactly where I was; I wasn't lost!
Four years later, 1953, it was Spring Break, & 3 of us, Al Brouse, Rob Kline, and me, all Stanford sophomores, headed down the old Baja Road, long before it was paved. The pavement ran out not far south of Ensenada, and the gravel not too much further. We were trying to drive to Santa Rosalia, but never made it. I remember the last 33 miles to El Rosario took 3 bone-jarring hours, as two of us rode in the cab of the same Dodge WWII command car, with new engine that didn't overheat so badly. The third person rode shotgun in the back & 'harvested' quail from huge coveys that we encountered. At night, we camped & ate dozens of quail breasts skewered on sticks & cooked over open fires. We had canned beans I other gourmet delights that created arguments, also! We averaged some phenomenally high number of dead quail per shotgun shell expended.
Somewhere near what is now Catavina, some 80 mi beyond El Rosario, and 60 miles short of the turn off to Bahia de Los Angeles, the truck broke down (These trucks never would have won Desert Storm!). We fiddled & fiddled for a day & a half with our limited tools & more limited knowledge, when, lo & behold, a truckload of turtles came up the track! The driver & his assistant stopped and explained that he made sporadic runs from Santa Rosalia to Tijuana with his ton-and-a-half truck overloaded with many tons of turtles, destined for canneries & restaurants in Ensenada & Tijuana. This Baja dirt track at that time was very Darwinian: The good mechanic who could keep his truck running, did so, and survived!
 
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