It finally happened.

Going on five years I've been out here, and I never got stuck on the wrong side of the wash while it was running water.  Before last night.

My own damn fault, too.  I could see the raging thunderstorm out over the canyons, it wasn't keeping itself a secret.  But conditions were perfect for a sneak expedition into town, and once the idea got its hooks into my mind it wouldn't go away.  They opened a Subway a few months ago, and I loves me some Subway.  And a grocery run wouldn't go amiss.  And it was Sunday night, when all but a token watch of cops are home in bed.  And it was raining, and cops need a good reason to get wet.  A better reason than li'l ol' me, anyway.

That's my justification, and I'm sticking to it.

So yeah, I snuck into town.  Got some gas, groceries, and a nice big toasted sandwich.  And then I snuck out of town.  Drove through the desert toward home.  Through the various washes, all nice and dry.  The moon was up but covered with thick clouds, and it was really dark.  The headlights seemed to cover an area about ten inches in front of the Jeep, illuminating nothing but raindrops.  Scared a big owl off a fencepost, damn near ran over any number of rabbits.

Down off the neighboring ridge, around the turn, toward the wash, and - what's that movement?

No time to stop.  Stopping would have been the very worst thing to do, once I was committed.  No time to throw the Jeep into 4-wheel.  There didn't appear to be a lot of water, but that wasn't much of a comfort.  Driving through any water at all without recon is strictly against my rule because you do not know how much road has washed out, and so you don't know how deep the water is.

But I didn't see it before I was committed, because I didn't stop to look.  Which I most certainly should have.  All the other washes were dry, but that's meaningless because this is the crossing closest to the canyons.  Which is where most of the water comes from.  Stupid.

I got away with it, which is why I'm here typing this instead of down in the wash trying to find the Jeep and rehearsing my excuses to Landlady.  "Honest!  This man stole the Jeep at gunpoint and drove it right into the flash flood!  I'm completely innocent!"  As it happened there probably weren't two inches of water, though from the look of the wash this morning that wouldn't have been the case if I'd stopped in town to eat that delicious sandwich.

Which was, everything else having been said, really delicious.