I think she has hit on something but keeps most of it to herself.
Snow has been piling up in South West Idaho and the reports were almost unthinkable. I was pacing in front of the window in Alaska watching rain fall at the rate of a quarter inch per 12 hours. Snow?
My bored pacing finally lead my wife to hand me a plane ticket to Idaho ( I think hoping to have me disappear into a deep snow drift).
"Go. Get out of here. Do whatever bored hunters do in lots of snow." she commanded me. I am such an obedient husband I grabbed my hunting dog and was on the first flight out of town.
Snow was everywhere. It was piled in the streets, in parking lots, and crumpling sagging roofs. Perfect hunting weather.
I dug for two days to free the jet boat and headed for the Snake River.
Wayne, my trusted scout had been seeing some geese on the river near his farm.
"Launch down river and run up to my farm," he told me thinking that if I had engine trouble I could simply float back down river to my truck and trailer.
The thermometer was tickling the minus numbers so that was a wise call. Things happen to mechanical equipment in very cold conditions.
Bright and early I arrived at the boat ramp areas. There is a ramp on both sides of the river right near a bridge.
The Idaho side had a huge mound of frozen snow blocking the entrance from the highway. Snow plows. Those crazy plows had thrown massive walls of slush off the road and into the driveway of the boat ramp. It would take a tank to remove it now that it was frozen solid.
I drove across the river to the Oregon ramp. Same situation. "Probably the same snow plow doing this to me. How dare he shut down my hunting for highway snow removal."
I turned the truck and trailer around and headed up river to a ramp that might be open as it is on fish and game property.
I cruised down a little bumpy lane that it looked like one tractor had bladed a deep groove in the snow just wide enough for a truck to pass through." If I meet someone on this road one of us will have to back up a long ways,'' I though.
I made it to a little boat ramp tucked away in some wooded area. The tractor had plowed out parking for three truck and trailer rigs and all three were full of trucks with empty trailers. Hunters who had beat me to the river.
It was difficult to get the trailer lined up with the ramp working in the confines of walls of plowed snow, but at last I had the boat lined up with the ramp.
I knew the ramp would be icy with the other trailers dripping water as they launched earlier, but was not prepared for just how slick it was. (the chains on the other three truck tires should have warned me).
The boat crested the lip of the ramp and then the back tires of the truck. I eased down a bit and then things went south in a hurry.
The boat trailer tire caught the deep snow at the edge of the ramp and took off upriver, the truck hit sheer ice and slid with all tires locked up.
Instantly the boat trailer jack knifed and the heavy truck sliding out of control pushed it sideways till the whole catastrophe hit the water of the river.
I put the truck in low range four wheel drive and tried to east forward. Four wheels spun like it was not in gear. I tried backing into the river a bit to get a little run at it but did not want to kink the trailer any more than it was. I was stuck.
I called Wayne and told him my dilemma. "Hang tight, I'll be right there. You can hook onto me with your winch and we'll get you right out." Like I was going anywhere!
While speaking to Wayne on the phone, a Department of Fish and Game truck with two officers towing a boat arrived. Great.
I jumped out of the truck slipped my way up the ramp.
"I'm kind of blocking the ramp," I stated the obvious to them.
"Yup, looks that way," college education dripped from every word.
" I can't get moving as the wall of snow the boat plowed under itself is jamming things up," I said. "I've got a shovel in my truck but it is buried under 50 goose decoys. I'd have to unload to get to it."
"There is a shovel in the back of my truck, " the officer said, "and we have sand bags we can open to give you more traction."
I grabbed the shovel and slide down the ramp to the truck and trailer. I dug like a mad man knowing I'm holding up these two gentlemen who are being paid by me (government wages).
The two officers saunter down to my jammed up outfit, I think after a cup of coffee, and start pouring sand up the ramp.
"Ok, give it a try," they said to me.
I handed one of them the shovel and try to open my truck door. Locked!
The truck is idling away with the door locked. My lab pup jumped up on the door to see out the window and locked both doors.
Both officers look at me like I have egg on my face.
"Hey no worries," I smile back. I have a hide a key somewhere under the back of the truck. I might have to lay on my back in the river to get it, but I'll find it.
It is not very pleasant laying on your back in the slush you have just shoveled out from under you boat in zero degrees weather to look for a key, but I did find that little magnetic box.
"Got it!" I whimpered to the officers who were rolling their eyes.
I unlocked the door, received licks in the face by the smiling lab puppy who, I'm sure, locked the door on purpose to show me how cold it is swimming in a river in January.
I try to drive the truck onto the sand the officers have spread. The truck just sweeps it right into the river.
Wayne shows up but cannot get around the fish and game boat and truck. One of the officers has to figure out where to drive his rig out of the way without getting stuck himself.
Wayne parks at the top of the ramp and runs my winch cable up to his truck. In no time we have winched my truck up straight and I back the boat into the river.
It takes some time to thaw the engine enough for it to turn over but at last it roars to life in a cloud of outboard smoke.
I tie the boat to a tree, load my gun, decoys, and bags, then drive the truck back up the ramp, the sand doing its marvelous job.
At the top there is no place to park. Wayne and I talk it over while the fish and game boys launch their boat.
"I think I can back the trailer into the deep soft snow and keep my truck on the plowed surface and leave this guy room to back his trailer past me," I told Wayne.
The plan works until the boat trailer hits soft snow. It jack knife's just like the boat ramp. I ease forward to unkink the trailer and the front of my truck drops into four feet of soft snow. I'm stuck again just as the officers come zooming up the ramp with their trailer.
Wayne and I do the winch maneuver again and get me back on the plowed surface.
"Just bring your trailer to my house," Wayne offered, "I'll bring you back to the boat, and then we can do the shuffle when you get ready to trailer again tonight."
I have to run back down the ramp and unload all my valuables like my gun and pack out of the boat, of course, right past the waiting officers.
I smile and wave as I trudge back past them with an arm load of stuff, my drenched backsides frozen into a solid block of ice.
I spoke to my wife that night.
"How was your day?" she sweetly asked.
"Oh the usual. I just went hunting by myself today. Got to meet a couple new guys on the boat ramp and spend some time with Wayne."
"I'm so glad. must be so nice to do the things you love," she said.
Hmmm... if she only knew... I would ONLY do it for the love of hunting.
plowed lane through the snow
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