a jeep experience

May 15, NM: Driving someone else's jeep through Ice Canyon without headlights was an experience I have no wish to repeat! After our shift at the Roadhouse last Sunday, Pat announced that I had to drive her jeep home: 19 miles down the dirt road called the General American. I usually sleep all the way home! She would be driving the welding truck pulling a trailer load of hay bales for the horses.
Things were fine while we were on the highway but once we hit the rutted dirt road my bladder began to protest all the tea that I had drunk that day. As I wrenched the steering wheel from side to side to avoid the deepest potholes, slowing to first gear over the cattle guards, I kept telling myself that I could hold on till we hit the half-way mark at the pond. When I hit the horn repeatedly with no response from Pat except a speeding up in the fading light, I began to get really concerned. I had to drive faster & more aggressively than I really wanted to just to keep her dust in sight. I couldn't afford to lose sight of her as there are many forks in the road through the mesas and it's easy to get lost.
My bladder concerns were shortly forgotten as I realized that although I could turn the wipers and washer on, I couldn't find the headlight switch. My vision was fading with the daylight. Pat was continuing to drive fairly fast without headlights, I was sure that she was part owl. Just as I was about to stop because I could no longer safely drive in the twilight to keep up with her (or ignore my bladder issue), she pulled to the side of the road and ran over to the Jeep saying "I have no headlights, I've been driving as fast as I can to get home before dark but now I need you to drive first with your lights on to show me the way!" just as I was saying: "I have to go to the toilet and I can't find your headlight switch!"
Well, after answering nature's call and getting Pat to turn the Jeep's headlights on, we were off again with me in the lead, at a much slower pace needless to say. Just as I turned the corner into the steepest & most dangerous part of the drive, Ice Canyon, my headlights went out! I hit the brakes to a complete stop & they came on again! I started forward & they went off again. I felt like they were on an automatic flash mode, on and off every few seconds. Luckily there was moonlight & I could see the road fairly well when the light went out but then I would be momentarily blinded as they continued to flash on & off all the way down into the Largo and home. I could only see Pat's truck as a dark looming shape behind me.
As we hit the final turn into the school driveway, the back window & door opened on the Jeep & swung upwards & outwards respectively. I stopped the Jeep, turned off the engine & refused to drive it any further!