Adventures on a Sunday drive in the country

Jacks Road photo PEI's Best Kept Secrets

Fall is definitely here now. Last week the leaves were all yellow, brown and a few flaming red. It was lovely to just drive around Charlottetown which saved me the bother of a trip to Vermont or Cape Breton to see some fall color.

I decided to explore dirt roads to see the pageantry. Down around Flat River a Suburban from Iowa was driving slowly ahead of us. They must be looking for the Jack’s Road like us.

Jack’s Road was pretty cool – trees hung over the road like a canopy. Someone had clear-cut the field to the north which took away from the hidden feel the road used to have.

Emboldened, I looked for another dirt road to travel and found one that joined two paved roads, the County Line Road.  It was narrower and even more rustic – closer trees and deeper forests on either side, the Caledonia County Line Road. This was fun.

At the end of that road, I saw an even smaller road, called the Lewes Road that I had taken 20 years ago so I drove up.

Lewes is famous for two things on PEI: 1) Angus MacLean a Federal MP, Premier and veteran homesteaded there and started the blueberry industry on PEI and 2) it was the home of some US draft dodgers from the Vietnam War in the 1970’s and other expatriates.

Things were interesting in Lewes back in those days. It was the place where Woodstock stayed alive for a few more years. I was the “accountant to the hippies.”  Except for my come-from-away status, I have no idea why they liked me. But they did and I liked them.

I had a bushy beard and wore sandals to work back then. You wouldn’t know me now but I have the pictures and memories to prove it.

Caledonia County Line Road photo - PEI's Best Kept Secrets

The Lewes Road was even smaller again. The branches were brushing against the side of the car. It was bumpy and the road climbed a steep hill.

Then I saw the ruts on each side of the crest in the narrow road. The rain had washed the ruts deep enough to swallow each car wheel.

I stopped. My heart is pumping. I don’t want to go back because it was too narrow to turn around but the road ahead was impossible.

The middle of the road was a foot higher than the side. The two ruts for each wheel seemed impossible to miss. If a wheel went down into a rut it was like a canyon. The tire would get stuck. The car felt wider than the road and the road was too narrow to navigate.

It was the middle of nowhere and I felt like the forest was rushing at me even though the car was at a dead stop.

My head was swimming. I stopped trying to decide – go ahead or do what. I couldn’t turn and going backwards was even harder than going ahead I thought. I was on crutches back then so walking out of woods was impossible and I had no cell phone.

My ears were filled with a thrushing sound I realized was my adrenelin pumped blood.

I had to go on. I never turn back: it’s a way of life. Slowly I started the car in first gear. I stayed to the edge and immediately one wheel fell into a rut. I applied the gas slowly and the car kept moving.

Lights flashed on the dashboard but I couldn’t look. No, the wheels were spinning. It was getting stuck.

The hill was so steep and the car kept stalling. No, it was moving forward. My blood was pumping even harder as the thrushing drowned out the screams from the back seat.

Hannah was in the back seat screaming, “We’re gonna get stuck! We’re lost! Turn around!”

I twisted the wheel this way and that way trying to avoid losing my tire in the deep holes. Branches scratched the car doors, slapping the windows.

The road got worse, narrower, deeper ruts. Then the Lewes Road just disappeared as I inched up the hill and turned right.

I was driving over a track filling in with alder and brush. No one had been on this road for years.

My mind raced with exhilaration. Oh my God, the paint on the side of the car will be wrecked to pieces with these tree limbs.

And then I saw the end. It’s over, I made it. I conquered the forest.

I stopped and went outside. My heart was still pounding and Hannah was telling me off from the back seat.

The 2004 Chevy Impala was all mud and scratches. I might need a paint job on the doors. There were long scratches from the front to the back.

I should have kept the 4 x 4 just for Sunday adventures.

Hannah has never let me forget when I “almost killed them” driving on dirt roads in PEI.

First published as “Rustic Roads” November 13, 2005, updated with photographs on December 16th, 2009. Photographs from PEI’s Best Kept Secrets