Last night we had just finished up with my wife's family Christmas party and several of us gathered back at my house to prepare for the week's coming activities. It was a leisurely Sunday evening at home when my wife's sister got a call from her husband. He had decided to make the 4-hour drive back to Twin Falls, Idaho with his daughter, her husband, and two kids. Unfortunately they started having car troubles and it seemed to be the alternator. With the alternator not charging the car's battery and driving at night with the lights on, it was only a matter of an hour or two before the battery could no longer provide enough electricity for the car to run. Shortly after the first call, we got another one and the car had died 26 miles from the Utah-Idaho border.
Hearing half of the conversation, I decided to call my buddy Brett who loves to rescue stranded motorists. He has a giant trailer and corresponding tow vehicle. He will drop everything to help someone in need. As luck would have it, he just got home and when I asked what he had planned for the evening he responded with, "Where we going?" I told him and without hesitation he exclaimed, "Let's go." I confirmed with my wife's brother-in-law that they could use our help and then headed over to help Brett connect the trailer.
Knowing the problem with the car, we thought we would stop at the local auto-parts store to see if we couldn't bring out a new alternator and fix the car on the spot. Brett loves to go Jeeping and often that means doing trail-side fixes in some of the most adverse conditions possible. Unfortunately it was already 9 pm on a Sunday and all the auto-parts stores in the Salt Lake area had closed. We had the trailer and decided to continue toward the stranded motorists.
100 miles and 2-hours later we pulled off the I-84 to the Howell exit 26 miles from the Idaho border. Brett jumped out from the driver's side wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a Santa hat. We then proceeded to put the cold passengers in Brett's beefy SUV and make arrangements to get the busted minivan on the trailer. While it is easy to drive a lifted and working 4x4 up the trailer ramp, approach angles and low ground clearance makes putting a non-functioning minivan on the trailer nearly impossible. Fortunately Brett has done this before and we created really long ramps. We also parked the trailer strategically so that we could reduce the approach angle and make it easier on the undercarriage of the vehicle. Then we had to figure out how to push or pull the car up the ramp.
Once again, Brett had done this before and had 2 different systems for getting cars up the trailer ramps. We used a simple chain windlass to get the minivan part way up the ramp. Then we used a second windlass when the first ran out of chain. We continued to pull the car up the ramps and onto the trailer. The process took about an hour as we also had to strap the car down so it wouldn't go anywhere while we drove North on I-84 all the way to Rupert, Idaho. We decided that Rupert was close enough to home that they could get the car the rest of the way home in the morning yet not make me and Brett drive too far.
The rest of the drive went painlessly and we easily removed the minivan from the trailer with the help of a small push and gravity. We pulled the battery from the car and I told my wife's brother-in-law to charge the battery which would allow him to come back and get the car in the morning.
My friend Brett performed a true action worthy of Santa Claus last night. We drove 400 miles and burned through 40 gallons of diesel fuel to help someone in need. Of course, I made sure to refill his tank for him. It is stories like this that remind us all of what Christmas is all about.
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