The other night Ryan and I went out for sushi. It had been drizzling for an hour or so, and when we headed out around 7pm it had started to turn to snow. The snow fell fast. We watched it during dinner and by the time we left for home an hour and a half later there was about 4-5 inches of snow on the roads. On the drive home, Ryan said, “Hey want to go home and get the 4Runner and see how many people we can pull out of ditches?” I didn’t have to think very hard, “yeah!” (Cue the high fives).

We bundled up and headed out. We had seen a stuck Camaro on the way home from sushi so we started there. Sure enough, the Camaro was right where we’d left it, having given up on spinning the wheels helplessly and moved on to just trying to keep the windshield clear. We pulled up along side, trail lights ablaze, looking like a snow beast and ready for anything.

“Do you have a tow hook?”

“…”

We checked for ourselves. They didn’t.

There’s always the option to just use the front of the 4Runner to push, well, pretty much anything. But this was the first car of the evening, the newest and the nicest. So we got out and pushed. The Camaro slid sideways, its rear wheels smoking and screaming.

“Slow! Not so much gas!”

The owner got out, looking sheepish. “Can you drive it? It’s a manual, you know, it’s not a regular car.”

“Yeah, neither is ours.”

Either one of us is more than comfortable with manual transmissions, but Ryan got in while I, the owner and his four cousins who’d arrived on scene, pushed from behind. The conditions were so slippery that just easing off the clutch had the tires spinning. But little by little we got the rear-wheel-drive beast up a driveway, down the row of shops and safely parked for the night in front of a lovely axe throwing establishment promising not to tow him.

We declined all the $20’s he and his cousins offered us and moved on. The snow was so dense and wet that a lot of people with the wrong tires were sliding on the slightest incline, and the rest of them didn’t have the horsepower to plow through the depths. We reached a hill that seemed to have gotten the better of more than half the cars headed uphill. We pushed, pulled and dragged four cars out of a 15 square foot stretch of road. We sent every single one of them back down the hill. “Find a different way home tonight.” The other cars on the slope picked up on the message and maneuvered themselves back down without even attempting it.

With that hill cleared, we turned around ourselves. There was now about 8 inches of super dense snow, and it showed no signs of stopping. We stopped though–for refreshments. The clerk looked thrilled to see humans. And that detour out of the way, we made a lazy loop toward home, jumping out to help where we could.

A lot of cars had already been abandoned for the night, but we turned down the last road to home and were greeted by about 5 cars at all angles and degrees of distress. One last hill then. We wove our way through all the spinning tires and came to a stop safely out of the way. “Well, which one should we start with?” Ryan asked me. I pointed to a Nissan that was especially in the way with especially bald tires. “Good choice.”

We chatted with the owner. Again, no knowledge of tow hooks, either by general definition or possible location on the vehicle. We checked for ourselves. Nope. This time it was me the owner asked to get in and drive while he and Ryan pushed. I grew up and Minnesota, this is commonplace for me and I know how to do it. I drove to the top of the hill, Ryan and the owner had let go somewhere back there but I wasn’t stopping for anything. I crawled along for a few yards, reluctant to come to a full stop. But when I realized the owner wasn’t coming, I had to stop and get out.

That’s when the headlights pulling up behind me turned on their overhead lights and I realized the cops had a problem with my parking spot. I held up a hand to block the glare from my eyes. They were out of the vehicles, walking toward me, “Is this your vehicle?”

“Nope! The owner’s down there somewhere…” I called back as we crossed paths and I made my way back down. I spotted the owner running up, waving and calling out a big thank you to me. He drove off, and so did the police. Sure, it’s not precisely their job, but I found it interesting that Ryan and I were so much more committed to helping people get home in the storm than the cops seemed to be.

We got four more cars moving off that hill, feeling quite accomplished and proud of ourselves when we turned to look as we walked back to the 4Runner, and saw that it was completely cleared.

I truly feel we are all at our best when we come to the aid of random strangers in a snowstorm. We could have stayed home after our sushi dinner. We could have curled up and watched a movie, commenting on how fast the snow was coming down outside (about 11 inches all told). But we have the kind of vehicle that is literally outfitted for pulling things out of ditches, and we have a sense of adventure that finds this kind of thing thrilling. So a date night that wraps up with a movie on the couch just isn’t our kind of date night when compared to an evening spent putting our winches and tow straps and good old fashioned know-how to use. I fell more in love with Ryan that night, and I would have said that’s impossible. Life is an adventure. This is ours.