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I-69, Mile Marker 70 – Not Quite Putnam Park

Sometimes there's a sign. It may be obvious; it may be not so obvious. When Bob and I pulled off to the side of I-69, near mile marker 70 in Indiana around 11:30pm on Friday night, that was our sign.

It was about 30 degrees outside, with a strong wind chill. We had run out of gas. Or at least that's what we initially thought. A call to AAA, a wait in Bob's truck for a little over an hour (to which it started to get a bit chilly by then), and the assumed rescue of the County Line Towing truck, we thought we'd be on our way and just a little tired from lack of sleep come Saturday morning. That wouldn't be the case. County Line brought 10 gallons of diesel fuel. A few attempts at starting the truck were made and while the first was successful, it only lasted for about 5 seconds, before the truck died. The following attempt saw the truck red line for several seconds (scaring the crap out of the guy helping us) and then die, followed by several unsuccessful attempts at the truck regaining consciousness. The one thing we did know was that the truck was making an abnormal sound from under the hood when turning over – a loud popping sound like something had blown/failed. Not good. It was now 1:00am.

Baffled by the truck not starting, our guy called his friends, his supervisor, and I think a few other people trying to get an answer on what was wrong – because he sure didn't know, and neither did we. Another truck had to be called to come out and assist, as the truck that brought out fuel wasn't equipped to tow both a truck and trailer. Of course. So we sat again; this time in the heated truck at least, waiting for a wrecker to arrive. It was now past 2:00am.

Throughout our ordeal up until this point, we made light of the situation, saying it would have been too cold to ride anyway, but in the back of our minds, we were a little unsure of what was wrong with the truck, where exactly we were going (the wrecker was taking us back 15 miles to where they were located), and where we were going to stay for the night. The wrecker finally arrived. It was now roughly 3:00am.

Once at County Line HQ (a really, really, really small town in the middle of nowhere), we had the truck and trailer inside their garage, safe from the frigid wind chill that we had been stuck outside in for the past 3+ hours. The guys there were plenty nice, but we couldn't help overcome this eerie feeling that we were in some sort of bad movie. Curious looks and awkward laughs from the truckers did nothing to inspire our confidence.

Fortunately there was a hotel right next door, so we took our bags and prayed that the truck and trailer would be there when we returned. At nearly 4:00 in the morning, we attempted to get a few hours of sleep and decide what our options were when we'd get up.

We had several options and none of them included continuing to Putnam unfortunately. The truck wasn't running, and we needed a ride back home. Bob made a few calls to rental companies – none of which offered one way trips to Michigan while also being able to tow a trailer. While County Line had been plenty friendly to us, we both decided the trailer needed to come home with us one way or another. Our savior was Bob's dad, who was in Ann Arbor and only a few hours away, closer than our other options (my dad, my wife, and Bob's wife).

Check out at the hotel was noon. Staying any longer meant we would have to pay for another night. The lady at the desk knew our situation, and given the number of rooms occupied at the hotel that morning (two, including us), we were slightly surprised she didn't give us a little leeway. No matter, we walked over to a surprisingly nice Dairy Queen, had lunch, and hung out there for about an hour or so. At around 1:30pm, Bob's dad arrived.

Back to County Line, we hooked up the trailer (it was still there thankfully). The eerie feeling hadn't changed, as another guy there was plenty nice, but comments such as, "Nice truck, I bet we could part that out for some good money", and, "Those are some nice bikes in there, why don't you leave them here," made us eager to get back on the road.

Roughly 4-5 hours later we arrived home, extremely gracious and appreciative to Bob's dad for the rescue. The truck had to be left in Indiana and even though the boys at County Line offered to, "take a look at it", Bob's decided getting it home somehow and having it looked at locally would be the best choice. I agreed.

In any event, we still accomplished some of what we set out to do – go on a road trip and have a good time. Granted, being in the cold in the middle of the night and not making it to the race track weren't part of that plan, but given the cold and windy track conditions, I don't think we missed out on much. We still had a good time and were able to laugh about our adventure throughout most of it.

Maybe our moment of pulling off was indeed a sign. Surely a crash on cold tires, on a cold track, could have resulted in something worse than what we had gone through. Ironically enough, we were talking about how reliable Bob's trucks had been exactly at the time it died. Eerie indeed.

Monday, April 9th, 2007 | POSTED AT: 6:32 AM
FILED UNDER: General