One of my favorite memories in this truck. We were out by the Salton Sea at dusk and in a valley I noticed a lot of green plants but no water. I got out and walked down. The ground was hard and seemed safe to pass. Once we drove on it, we broke through the crust and this goopy horrible mud just sucked the truck in.
My wife was incredible... Nothing negative to say, just positivity even when I wanted to quit. We dragged dozens of nearby railroad ties and buried them in each corner using the hi-lift until we got each wheel up on one, then I attempted to gun it out, but got stuck even worse. The Hi-lift kept jamming with mud, so we used Dr. pepper to clean it, so we'd conserve our water. Repeated the process but made a road out the second time, which finally worked. Lost our shoes in the knee deep mud, it took 5 hours of digging but we made it. If we weren't already married, I'd have proposed to her that night.
The truck has numerous dents in it that all have a story... One of the dents is this story, and was from the hi-lift slipping out.