The Tale Of Beulah The Battleship's Return Trip Of Woe
Buelah's second tow of that very long day
Side note of somewhat relevant detail: Yesterday I posted an overview of what it is like to experience a day trip of garnet hunting at the Emerald Creek Garnet Area in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. It was a more informative sort of post, constructed in such a way that would encourage one or many to take a trip to the site of star garnet collection dreams. This tale is a true story that contains an anecdote of what you would NOT want to happen to you on the way home after mining garnets all day. I hope you all enjoy my story of automobile woe.
The day's garnet hunting extravaganza had come to an end. The complement of garnet hunting laborers that I had brought with me to the mining area were exhausted. Their mica covered forms slumping from the mid ninety degree heat.
"Let's call er a day!" I announced after I had completed sluicing my 12th last bucket.
Along with my husband and two children, I had brought my co-worker and his mother on this particular trip. In fact, the whole reason we were mining this particular time was that my friend and co-worker had never gone, and we had been planning our garnet hunting excursion for over a year. You might have come across his excellent work on Steemit before: @jacobtothe
The day had passed pleasantly, albeit a touch on the hot side. We had just finished getting our garnets weighed at the ranger shack when my youngest piped up with the obvious:
"It's such a long drive home."
It is only a hundred and ten miles from the garnet site to my home, but that drive is anything but in a straight line. In fact, I believe the state of Idaho doesn't believe in the concept of straight means of travel. Highway 3 from Rose Lake to Saint Maries, Idaho has more curves than a batch of reality show TV stars. That road will elicit vomit from the most stubborn of car sickness suffers. The whole drive is beautiful, but time consuming to complete.
We marched our worn out carcasses down the half a mile trail-road to our awaiting home-bound chariot. Beulah the Battleship. Yes, I name my vehicles. It might be juvenile, but something that transports you should have a suitable moniker. It lends a certain amount of respectability to your ingress and egress as you traverse the roads of life. I can't say things like, "Let's take the Rolls to the cinema." I do however, relish saying things like, "Let's take Beulah to the feed store." People probably think that I am talking about my elderly aunt, but in truth I am referring to my Suburban, a 1999 model carry-all whose sole existence is to fetch all manner of farm detritus and transport all manner of people to various life events. That vehicle has had everything from weaner pigs to football gear in it. She has been faithful for years, until this particular day.
We had left the gravel and dust of road 447 and were heading north through the wilds towards the town of St Maries. Conversation was progressing nicely, and I turned toward my husband with a satisfied look upon my mica clay smeared mug. His face looked like it was melting in despair:
"No Beulah!" he moaned in whispered agony.
At that point I noted that Beulah's engine was no longer running. My husband coasted all two tons of American steel to a stop on the side of the highway, and we all just sort of looked at each other. We ran through some of the obvious troubleshooting ideas, but it became apparent that Beulah was not getting any fuel. As tired as I was, it was also apparent that a long hike was in my future. It was still about 94 out, and we had drank most of our water. Awesome.
"I'm going to hike to the top of this hill and see if I can get a cell signal." I blurted with what I hope sounded like confidence.
"Well, Meathead, you aren't going by yourself." was my husband's reply. He has such lovely terms of endearment.
I made short work of the 100 yards to the top of the hill, and I contorted myself like a Yoga practitioner on top of this stump on the side of the road. I actually got one bar. It was while I was in the "she looks like a vomiting eagle" position that a SUV came blaring around the bend. I'm sure that the scene was of interest, as there was nothing normally to gaze upon but trees and hills. Even I would be scintillated by the site of a contorted, mud covered short person on a stump, phone thrust high into the air. The laughing Hawaiian would only further pique my curiosity.
This is a pretty good representation of the scenery that surrounded us during our ordeal. Just try to imagine a clay covered girl golem-looking creature frantically thrusting a cell phone into the air for a smidgen of signal. I have no pictures of that moment; I am sure you can imagine why.
Source
Of course the vehicle was the Benewah County Sheriff heading home for his evening dinner. The officer was all business at the beginning our exchange. There were initial inquiries regarding our predicament, a look at our ID's, and a call for a tow truck. My favorite part of this section of the unfolding tale was being sequestered into the back of the police vehicle for a ride down the hill to the ailing Suburban. I ran my fingers along the grating that separates law enforcement from criminal with unrepentant glee. My husband just sat in the back of the sheriff's rig rather stoically, like a monk.
The sheriff drove us back down the hill to Beulah and her garnet hunting misfits. While we were waiting it was decided that my co-worker, his mother, and the children would ride with the sheriff into St. Maries to wait for us at the local burger joint, as we all wouldn't fit in the coming tow truck. My husband jokingly said the kids could ride in the canine cage in the rear of the Sheriff's SUV.
The Sheriff cast his gaze upon our progeny and replied with an eyebrow raised: "That could be arranged."
Even though I had a mild sense of building panic as I was ruminating on the cost of a hundred mile tow, plus vehicle repairs, I had to admit this experience was progressing in a pretty positive manner. Then I saw the tow truck.
I am pretty sure that Nixon or Carter was president when the tow truck was manufactured. It's roar probably contained a plea for leaded gas. I like classic things, but the man that exited the red tow truck of deliverance looked like he could Larry The Cable Guy's cousin. He was something!
Before I could even process all this new detail data I found myself squished next to the tow truck driver in that beast of a hauler. It was a stick shift, and every time he had to downshift to pull a hill (there were a plethora of them), I was smashed into the armpit of his sleeveless t-shirted form. Always striving to be mannerly, I found myself repeating this phrase:
"I do so apologize for being in your way and the clay."
"What?" he bellowed in return over the roar of the tow trucks laboring engine.
No more pleasantries were exchanged during the tow.
We arrived into St. Maries about twenty minutes later. I was feeling pretty thankful both due to the arrival in town and thanks to the fact that I didn't have to complete the fifteen mile hike that tow truck man said that I would have been facing in order to get help.
A bunch of fried food, milkshakes, two hikes to and from the tow truck guy's house and the fast food joint, lots of phone calls and information given to AAA (Ever will the gratitude flow to my friend's mom for being a member), another tow truck, and a rescue drive home from an amazing friend; we finally arrived back home sixteen hours after our garnet hunting day began.
Beulah's fuel pump has died. I spent a fair amount of dollars on a new one, and she has been her normal, faithful, carryall self the last few months. I'll probably go garnet hunting again this summer, but in all honesty, I think I will take my new car for this trip. Just in case.
Pardon the blurry photo, this is an old picture of my very first garnet haul
I hope that this story doesn't dissuade anyone from garnet hunting. That is definitely not my intent. Rather, I wanted to paint a verbal picture of the kindness that we encountered that day. Every person that we came across was a stranger to us, and they went out of their way to help us resolve our predicament. There are still kind people in the world. Some need dental work, some like to talk about wolves and smirk at the look on your face when they lock you in their people cage, but in the end I will always feel an immense sense of thankfulness to how they treated us all in our time of need.
More Information About St. Maries, Idaho
@generikat note of additional clarification: I did indeed write this post yesterday as claimed. However, a 40 feet of ice in the library sewer plumbing extravaganza interfered with my normal posting schedule. Today smells better in every way!
And as always, all of the pictures in this post, with the exception of the one above cited, were taken by the author on either her archaic no-longer in use digital camera, or engine grease smeared iPhone.