You do not want to do this either. Apparently, he was driving through the Great Smoky National Park. Read the article below. Funny.
JUNE 5, 2001: THE DAILY TIMES NEWSPAPER
TRACTOR-TRAILER MAKES WRONG TURN, ENDS UP IN CADES COVE by Thomas Fraser, Times Daily Staff
A wayward tractor-trailer blocked traffic in Cades Cove for five hours Saturday after the driver got stuck on Loop Road.
Rangers, a wrecker crew, maintenance workers and volunteers all scrambled to free and reroute the 53-foot truck - carrying 27,000 pounds of tires - after its axles stuck on a curve down from Sparks Lane.
Two hundred cars had to be turned around and directed out of the cove soon after the truck became stuck around 12:30 p.m. Saturday. A Florida wedding party with plans to marry at Missionary Baptist Church were among the inconvenienced.
Commercial traffic is prohibited throughout the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
"His company had routed him through the park" en route to Georgia via U.S. 441, said park spokeswoman Nancy Gray. While that in itself is illegal, the driver of the truck, 52-year-old Julian Burciaga of New Mexico, made matters worse when he made a right turn at the Townsend Y.
Instead of heading up Little River Road, itself a narrow, mountain road, Burciaga, driving for SWIFT trucking company of New Mexico,made his way to Cades Cove along Laurel Creek Road.
"I'm not even sure how he managed to get in the cove without hitting another vehicle," Gray said. Signs along park roadways in the area warn that commercial traffic is prohibited. A similar sign along U:S: 321 in Townsend before the Vicars Valley Road turn-off was removed to make way for road construction.
Burciaga got his rig about onethird mile up Loop Road, a narrow, winding, one-way road, before the rear axles dropped into a creek at a hairpin turn.As rangers began the two-hour process of turning cars behind the rig around, Butler Wrecker Service. of Walland arrived on the scene with a 35-ton wrecker.After dislodging the truck and turning it around on Sparks Lane, wrecker driver Jerry Hall had to assist the truck in getting it back around the Loop Road - the wrong way.
"We had to slide him around some of those curves," he said; meaning cables were attached to the trailer to pull it around some of the more pronounced curves.However, the tractor-trailer then became lodged on a steep grade, and "I had to drive back around" by way of Sparks Lane, "and winch him up the hill," Hall said. Finally, some five hours after the saga of the wayward trailer began, Burciaga and his rig were freed from Cades Cove. Rangers had to close Laurel Creek Road late Saturday as the rig made its way out of the park.
Burciaga has only had his commercial license for seven months, Gray said, so a Cades Cove visitor who happened to have 17 years of driving experience drove the rig through some of the trickier terrain:
"It was pretty wild," Hall said.; Gray said Burciaga was charged with driving a commercial vehicle in the park and damage to natural resources, for total fines of $150. However, Burciaga may also be assessed restitution costs due to damage to the road, Gray said. "He really inconvenienced a lot of people," Gray said, including the wedding party, who were in the first cars allowed back on the Loop Road after it reopened.
"I've been doing this a long time," said Hall, "and I've never seen anybody go into Cades Cove with a tractor-trailer. He was lost real bad."
Gray said three weeks ago another tractor-trailer in the park illegally struck three cars on Little River Road before being directed out of the park by rangers.
A real Swift move....
