Chad Gets The Station Van Stuck

The first annual Moonlight Ride wrapped up this past Saturday evening and as some of you know by now... Dave Spencer is the only one of us who has a bike.  The next best thing is a pedal tractor from Trunnells!

We see this pickup truck turning the corner downtown by the Hampton Inn in Owensboro with our 4 chariots in the back.  We were extremely excited at this point despite half of Owensboro warning us that it was a bad idea and telling us that we would fail miserably.  Hard headed and confident, we unloaded these things and did some practice runs around the river front.  These things are cake to drive and we thought we had this whole thing in the bag.

I mean.. look at this optimism!!  Chad and I are ready to roll.  And as 10pm rolled around we fired this event off and started pedaling.  I didn't even know 2nd street in Owensboro was that long first of all and by the time we got to Carter it was getting tough.... and more tough... and then I get a phone call from Chad.  We could have finished this and I'll shout that from the rooftops because it is possible to do this with a pedal cart, it just would have taken us until 2am to finish... so we locked it up.  We did 4 miles which I'd imagine is more than anyone anticipated.  After everything wrapped up we decided to be nice guys and drop the carts back off at Trunnells... and the real fun began.

So here we go on our midnight adventure to Trunnells that lasted much longer than we expected.  Chad pulls the van, nose first, down into this seemingly manageable ditch but let's get technical here... Cargo van with no weight in the back, 2 wheel drive, too much power to the wheels for them to grab traction... ditches are a cargo vans foe.  We get out to survey the situation and we realize that we are full on stuck in a ditch to which Chad says "we need some cat litter."  Because loose cat litter would be a great traction substitute for... LOOSE GRAVEL.  This was a mess. We tried it all... Bouncing on the bumper, trying to go forward (kinda broke the bumper doing that trick) shoving stuff under the rear wheels ie: t-shirts, steel poles and drift wood.  None of it worked

Chad made phone calls to Kevin Trunnell who was asleep because at this point it was 1am.  So it was time for the tow service to get involved.  Chad made the shame call to the wrecker service and said "this is really embarrassing but we have gotten our van stuck."  That phrase is more than likely what the dispatch hears on a regular basis down at the wrecker place.  They said they would call us back.

While we wait we try bouncing and shoving more stuff under the tire and still nothing.  Kevin and I decide to make the best of the whole ordeal while Chad was trying to decipher a plan. We get the pedal tractors back out and spin around in the parking lot.  This was a blessing in disguise  because this got Kevin Trunnell's dad up and attem.  He sort of creeps over 431 with his lights off and Chad is convinced that he has a shot gun on point ready to start shooting.  He comes over and I'll tell you, his outfit was a skimpy one indeed.  We told him the situation which he thought was hilarious and with just a pair of boxers, knee high socks and house shoes on.... he pulled us right out of that ditch and off we went.  That's how we roll!!

Here is the damage we left behind after we were yanked out of the ditch.  Look... it's a smiley face made by the bumper on the van and the front tires.  Not a bad night.  Chad gets a text the next morning from Kevin Trunnell saying.. "So I heard you met my night watchman last night."  Hilarious!!