WYK to the rescue
I was resting at the PIlot stop at exit 99 on I5 just south of Olympia, Washington when I got a call about 4pm. It's one of the cruisers I was working with last week. He tells me his truck has a flat in the south part of the forest near fort Lewis, which is about 20 miles from me, and his jack is't working. It was in such a bad area his standard jack could not lift the truck up enough for him to get the tire off. I got his coordinates, plugged them in to my GPS unit, and headed out to rescue him with another jack.
I arrived about an hour later, out in a remote area that was flooded and getting more rain every moment. We then had to walk about another mile through the forest into the area he was parked because I did not have a 4X4 to reach him. The wind was picking up. The entire area was blown down trees, limbs, and mud. Try as we could, the two jacks just could not give enough articulation to get his wheel off. When it grew dark he said he'd go camp in his truck, and with the aid of my GPS unit I walked in the dark back to my truck and readied it to camp in for the night. Just then, the other cruiser appears from the wid and the rain down the trail and tells me he needs beer, pizza, and a hotel room. He would pay if I got him out of there. He really didn't want to camp in the truck for the night.
Well, this was 3 hours after I arrived - by then the roads were flooded and I was hoping to wait until the water ran off the next day and drive out. But the thought of a dry hotel room cold beer, and hot pizza was mroe than enough incentive. It was very dark, and my headlights are nearly worthless...but i wanted beer.
I fired up the Ford F150 and headed out. Only one problem, there was no room to turn her around, so I would have to follow a small trail another 3 miles until we were out of the forest and on to a proper road. It would be the longest 3 miles of my life.
The trail was full of blown down trees and huge limbs that had fallen from Douglas Firs and Hemlocks. The rain had collected at the bottom of every hill and formed huge ponds I had to ford with my Ford. On several occasions we became stuck and my fellow forester had to get out and stand in the bed of the truck for extra traction as I rocked it back and forth. I had to fly up every hill nearly sideways to maintain enough speed to top them without becoming stranded. All the while it poured rain, the windows were fogged, and the mud and branches were flying in thru the windows we had open to keep the misting down. At one point we were moving huge branches from the road so the truck could get thru, at other times we were hacking and sawing tree trunks to clear the road.
From boarding the Ford until we made it out to the pavement, it took narly 2 hours to end that 3 miles of trail hell.
That night we stayed at the Super 8 near Lacey, I as absolutely stunned the Ford made it thru that torture test. We had a lot of beer and a lot of pizza. Even Carlow had some crust and a few pieces of sausage. At 8 am the next morning we were at the CRAP(
Cut Rate Auto Parts | We've Got Your Part!) auto parts buying a REAL jack. By 1030 we had hiked the mile or so to the truck, swapped out the tire, and drove her the 3 miles out back to the flat top and then up to where I had parked my truck. The 3 mile trail was far less intimidating in the daylight without rain and in a 4X4.
I was treated to a very healthy lunch.
I am now back at the Pilot at exit 99 ...