These two pictures below show the Muirhead Canning delivery truck in a farmer’s pasture near St. John, WA. I was trying to decide if the delivery truck could make it through the slough and up the bank on the other side. There was a bit of a road leading up to the water but not much sign of traffic coming out the other side. The main road I wanted was only 1/4 mile past this crossing, so all I had to do was to drive through and I’d be there. My GPS unit did not send me this way, but it did show this trail across the pasture as an actual road. I had tuned off the highway in hopes of saving 20 minutes to the last stop on my delivery route. To go back to the turnoff meant bouncing back across the pasture through the farmyard and an 30 extra minutes before I would get home. What would you do?

My thought was that there was about a 60% chance that I would make it through. When I was younger I probably would have gone for it… but when you learn a few things the hard way, you don't take as many unnecessary risks. If I got stuck how would I explain to the farmer what I was doing in the middle of the pasture and would he please pull me out? So I turned around and drove back the way I had come. My "shortcut" had added about 40 minutes to my drive that day, but getting stuck would have added several hours!