May 4, 2008 Hollis Bridge of Doom

We considered chasing storms in extreme West Texas, but thought it would be better to position ourselves in Southwest KS for Monday.  We drove from Cisco, TX, to Garden City, KS, a  499-mile jaunt up U.S. 83. And, it was not without excitement, as I elected to take the group to the Hollis “Bridge of Doom”. This is a very old road bridge over the Red River, between Hollis, OK, and Childress, TX. It kind of looks like it may have been an old railroad bridge. There is only one lane, with a couple of planks for the tires. The weight limit is three tons, so I have the guests get out of the van before driving across (about one-quarter mile). Anyway, I had my “regular” route to the bridge figured out as we left Childress, but then looked at the Delorme map on the laptop halfway there. It suggested that I go a different, more direct route. These were dirt roads, which I would never use if there had been recent rain, but I figured that there would be no problem this time. About three or four miles before the bridge, our alternate dirt road was becoming very sandy. There were a couple of places where our big van had a tough time of it. We made it through the deep sandy parts, but our second vehicle, the minivan driven by Bob, got stuck. His minivan was “high-centered”, as the ruts for the tires were too deep given his low clearance. The eight of us in the big van trudged back about a tenth of a mile to help rescue the other six. We decided that it would be best to try to push the minivan back the way he came, though it was slightly uphill. We cleared the sand out from beneath the vehicle and tried to even out the sandy road behind it. I took the wheel, and about 8 people pushed the minivan backwards as I tried to get the thing moving in reverse. It was very slow to go initially, but after several seconds the thing began to creep backwards. Once out of the deep sand I was able to continue backwards far enough onto solid dirt and easy motoring. Unfortunately, Bob and his five guests were forced to go back to Childress and north to Wellington, and missed out on the scenic Hollis Bridge of Doom. Meanwhile, our van had to navigate another couple of miles on this occasionally very sandy road. At one other point the sand was so bad that we were going no more than 1 mph. I tried to keep the thing moving, and I barely did. I don’t know how we managed to get through, as I thought for sure we were on our way to Tow-Truck City. The van made it to the bridge! Next time I will take the route that I know is less harrowing.