April 25, 2008
“Hello Dad” my pickup is in twenty feet of water at the bottom of the lake and I don/t have a ride home.”
While fishing in a heated dock, our son heard the scraping noise triggered by his pickup rubbing the dock’s anchor cable as it floated across. He looked out of the dock window just in time to helplessly watch his 1985 Toyota float a total of about thirty yards from shore before sinking to the bottom of the lake.
Two and a half hours later the accumulated attendance around the heated dock included – several, officially dressed sheriff’s vehicles, three or four park rangers (one retired), wearing proper ID patches, a local, jolly wrecker service, a cold water rescue diving unit, half of the nearest town’s population and me.
The ranger’s first attempt at locating the drowned pickup truck was by probing with a fifteen foot grapple pole. They couldn’t find anything because their pole was too short. Next attempt was with their sonar equipped rescue boat which was successful. They verified the water depth at twenty feet and anchored a buoy to mark the main attraction which, now could only be seen waveing at us from on top..
The cold water rescue divers found the Toyota contentedly reclining, leaning back in the nice cool mud with it’s top at the bottom, kicking it’s feet up. They anchored the tow chain around the rear axle and a million eyeballs watched the inverted land landing performed not too gracefully by this suddenly very popular Toyota pickup truck.
Both front and rear windshields popped out as the top caved in on this inverted pickup while the cab was being coaxed to jump the bank and follow the bed onland.
“Hey look, my fishing pole carrying rack is still there!”
The jolly wrecker operator kindly offered to winch the "catch" up vertically so our son could pose beside it with his fishing pole and landing net. This one didn't get away but was impossible to clean!
We aren’t quiet sure what possessed the Toyota to go for a swim but we are aware that old Windy Gust was at that shoreline and we suspect he might have given it a jump start!