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.
Showing posts with label Idaho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idaho. Show all posts
Monday, December 23, 2019
Monday, August 31, 2015
True Civilization
This past weekend I had the opportunity to drive from Salt Lake to Gooding, Idaho. Ever hear of Gooding, Idaho? No, I didn't think so. The only reason I know it is there is because my wife's sister lives there with her family. There was a family event up there and so we made the relatively short drive to get together. During the quick trip I was surprised at how I found myself comparing life in small-town Idaho with life in Salt Lake and life in the Bay Area.
One may be tempted to believe that cities are much more civilized than small towns. After this trip, I believe the opposite is true. The first indication was the traffic and speed limits. While the distance I traveled was around 250 miles, the trip only took around 3 hours each way. That same trip in California would have taken over 4 hours. Why? Because the speed limit in Utah and Idaho is 80 miles per hour. It is only 65 in the Golden State. Furthermore there was no need to fight any sort of traffic as there were relatively few cars on the road. The last time I left the Bay Area headed to Salt Lake, I spent an hour or so fighting traffic just to get out of the Bay Area. I thought that was ridiculous given that I left at 9:30 pm.
My next observation came when we stopped for dinner. We pulled off the Interstate and found a relatively popular family dinning restaurant chain. There is an identical restaurant found near my home in Salt Lake as well as one near my office in the Bay Area. The menu is the same at each of the 3 places and one would think the food and service would be as well. Nope, not even close. This small-town restaurant in the middle of Idaho had significantly better service and the food actually matched what I saw on the menu. When does that ever happen? The menu always looks awesome and then the food gets to you and one would think it was run over by a truck before arriving at the table.
I thought about the joys of civilization as I drove to the motel to check in for the night. While I could find a much higher quality place to stay in both Salt Lake and the Bay Area, there wasn't a chance I would find the same quality for the price I was paying. The motel had clean rooms and a very nice swimming pool with attached hot tub. Again, a point for small-town America.
My final check was to pull out my smartphone and check the Internet connection. It was LTE speeds with a stronger signal than I get at my office in San Mateo, California. I did a quick check to see if there were any Uber drivers in the area. That is the one short-fall of a small town: no Uber. Of course the town was so small you could walk from one end to the other in a few minutes and so a taxi or Uber would be pointless, but I had to check.
With all of the technology we have available to us, why do small towns continue to shrink while large cities continue to get bigger? Can't we have more telecommuters? What is wrong with us? Small-town America is much more civilized than our overcrowded cities. Maybe we might want to start taking advantage of that.
One may be tempted to believe that cities are much more civilized than small towns. After this trip, I believe the opposite is true. The first indication was the traffic and speed limits. While the distance I traveled was around 250 miles, the trip only took around 3 hours each way. That same trip in California would have taken over 4 hours. Why? Because the speed limit in Utah and Idaho is 80 miles per hour. It is only 65 in the Golden State. Furthermore there was no need to fight any sort of traffic as there were relatively few cars on the road. The last time I left the Bay Area headed to Salt Lake, I spent an hour or so fighting traffic just to get out of the Bay Area. I thought that was ridiculous given that I left at 9:30 pm.
My next observation came when we stopped for dinner. We pulled off the Interstate and found a relatively popular family dinning restaurant chain. There is an identical restaurant found near my home in Salt Lake as well as one near my office in the Bay Area. The menu is the same at each of the 3 places and one would think the food and service would be as well. Nope, not even close. This small-town restaurant in the middle of Idaho had significantly better service and the food actually matched what I saw on the menu. When does that ever happen? The menu always looks awesome and then the food gets to you and one would think it was run over by a truck before arriving at the table.
I thought about the joys of civilization as I drove to the motel to check in for the night. While I could find a much higher quality place to stay in both Salt Lake and the Bay Area, there wasn't a chance I would find the same quality for the price I was paying. The motel had clean rooms and a very nice swimming pool with attached hot tub. Again, a point for small-town America.
My final check was to pull out my smartphone and check the Internet connection. It was LTE speeds with a stronger signal than I get at my office in San Mateo, California. I did a quick check to see if there were any Uber drivers in the area. That is the one short-fall of a small town: no Uber. Of course the town was so small you could walk from one end to the other in a few minutes and so a taxi or Uber would be pointless, but I had to check.
With all of the technology we have available to us, why do small towns continue to shrink while large cities continue to get bigger? Can't we have more telecommuters? What is wrong with us? Small-town America is much more civilized than our overcrowded cities. Maybe we might want to start taking advantage of that.
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