Springtime in Michaux

Sunday morning we rode trainers in the basement and watched Idiocracy. Had no idea how it would hit home later in the day!

I was suffering from cabin fever so we took the truck out for a mosey around the forest to see what conditions were like.

We started out Ridge Road and got a hundred yards or so past the double yellow gates, when we decided going forward would be foolhardy. Still lots of wet, heavy snow you could easily sit the frame of the truck on and be very, very stuck between there and Woodrow Road. This is where the road had been drifted shut bank-to-bank and then run down by snowmibiles. Then drifted shut again. And then run down by snowmobiles again. At its deepest before the melt, the snow was probably 4'-5'.

Up towards Woodrow, we saw a Jeep Cherokee in the road, facing us, pretty obviously not going anywhere. We turned around and headed back and down Michaux, intending to loop around and up Woodrow to see what was up with the Jeep. On the way up Woodrow from 233, as we climbed towards the very steep right-hand switchback on the south face, we see a blue Ford F350 long-bed crewcab with its rear end down over the bank against a tree and its front end pointing up around the corner. We pulled to a stop, and I got out of the Cruiser to hear the driver of the Ford saying, "We're really pissed!"

I thought, gee, I would be, too, if we were in their situation.

I offered to try to give them a hand and the driver got out of the truck. Once he was on his feet, I realized he wasn't mad, he was just about falling down drunk. Yeah, he was "pissed"!

He asked, "Is that a Toyota?"
"Yeah."
"Waddya know...a Ford getting pulled out by a Toyota" He kinda chuckled to himself.

We drove up to get a good pulling direction on the Ford, put the Toyota in 4L and locked all the diffs. The corner was slimy, crappy mud--better on the high side with the lower gutter looking pretty treacherous, which is how the Ford slid backwards and off the road.

Without making a fuss about it, the Ford driver laid down in the mud to hook the snatch strap to his truck...which was good on him! Don't make the guy helping you get in the mud! I shackled the other end to one of the rear recovery points on the Cruiser and jockeyed the truck into position for a yank.

It took about 4-5 good jerks to get him completely on the road, with all four wheels of the Cruiser flinging mud in the slop. Part way through, another Ford pickup with a small dump body came down Woodrow from the top and stopped to watch. We got the F350 up on the road and Pissed Guy offered us $10 for our efforts. I told him that if he would be the one to get in the mud again to unhook the strap, that would be payment enough. So he frolicked and cussed in the mud again. At one point, he stepped backwards and nearly fell on his butt in the ditch. This guy was pretty much plastered!

I threw the muddy strap in the back and we started up the road to go around the other truck. We stopped to say hi quickly, and find out that these guys were called to come pull out the F350...and then they couldn't get the dump Ford started again...We kept going at that point.

Up and over to Ridge Road, then a right turn to see what was up with the Cherokee. No one was with it. Abandoned. We stopped where it still made sense and I walked out to the Jeep. The snow pack was so dense that the Jeep was sitting ON TOP of it. It wasn't cutting through it. Bone stock Cherokee. With half-worn out street tires. The right front wheel was dropped off the snow pack into the ditch. And that was why he was stuck. With that tire hanging, he had no traction on the front right and the rear left. So, without differential locks of some sort, those wheels just spun and the Jeep didn't move. We guessed this was the offal of drunken hooligans from Saturday night.

We backed out and headed back over Woodrow Road. When we reached the Ford hairpin, we saw the dump Ford now sitting abondoned on the shoulder and the F350 no where to be found. And of course, a pile of Bud Lite cans in the road where Pissed Guy ditched the evidence. Idiocracy.

We picked up the cans and threw them in the dump bed of the other Ford, saving one to put under the windshield wiper for them to see and continued on our way.

I love the creatures you can find in Michaux in the spring. We really need to remember the camera next time.