The owner of the bookstore Josh works at, Sign of Life, put me up at his ranch which is about 20 minutes outside of Lawrence. It was awesome, but my first trip out there involved following Josh (who was driving ahead of me) at about 12 midnight. The last 2 miles to the ranch involve drive on dirt roads. We were almost there. My rental car, a white Monte Carlo, had gone about 1,500 miles across the country in less than 2 weeks.
As we got close, Josh pulled into the front gate of what appeared to be the ranch we were seeking. Instead, it was the wrong one. I had pulled up behind him to wait for him to open the gate with the keys his boss had given him. He got out and told me this was the wrong ranch. So, I backed up a bit to make room for him to pull back. Where I was pulling the car back, there was a bit of a hill, so I made sure not to go too far back. Once Josh had enough room, he pulled back and then started back up the hill driving on to find the home we were actually supposed to be at. As Josh drove on, I then put it back into drive and started to go … but the tires of the car just spun. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I flashed my lights to Josh, as he was already getting pretty far down the road. It was pitch black dark on this dirt road as I got out to look at the back tires. The right back tire apparently got stuck in a ditch on the side of the road. Most of that tire wasn’t even touching anything. Josh and I tried pushing it for a minute, but with no one inside the car (and working uphill), it wasn’t going to go anywhere. I got inside the car for a few seconds to put it in neutral to see if Josh could get it, but it wasn’t happening. This car was stuck.
We had no cell phone service, so we left the car there with its flashers on just so possible passersby might see it (and not hit it). It was on this weird curve that went uphill. We made our way down to the ranch, which was pitch black. It was tough for Josh to find the door lock to fit the key into, but he did. We used the house phone, where he called his wife and a friend. They advised us to call a tow truck, which we did. Thankfully, Josh had AAA and they came in about an hour. We went back down to where the car was. It was a good 3/4 mile just from the house we were at to the front gate of the ranch I was staying on. The entire ranch encompasses something like 400 acres!
From the front gate of the ranch, it was another mile or so down the road to where my rental car was. The tow truck just pulled up the same time we got back there and they pulled us out quickly (and free with Josh’s AAA). I gave the guy a $10 tip for coming out at 1:30am. We made our way back to the ranch and crashed at nearly 2am. What a day. What a journey. Josh told me, “Welcome to Kansas.”