It is confirmed: There are angels out there. And I had the incredible luck of meeting three of them over the weekend: A UPS driver named Marcus, a farmer named Richard Clifton and a AAA driver whose name I did not get but should have.
It was a boring, cold and somewhat snowy Saturday, so what was an addicted photographer with a new telephoto lens supposed to do? Well, grab her camera, drive out to Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge and search for snow geese, of course. After driving around out there awhile, I spotted a field full of hundreds of these beautiful birds. They were just sitting there waiting to be photographed. So, to get out of the way of possible traffic (there was none), I pulled off the road onto the snowy shoulder, parked, hopped out of the car and starting shooting pictures.
Then I spotted another field around the corner with even more birds. Yay! So I jumped back into my car, turned on the engine, stepped on the gas ... and my wheels just started spinning and spinning. I tried to back up ... got nowhere. So I thought maybe I could just get out and move some snow away from my front tires.
When I approached the front tires, the problem became immediately obvious as I fell into a snow-covered ditch. So that’s why my car wouldn't go anywhere ... it was in a ditch, haha .... in the middle of a very remote farm area ... haha. Silly me ... haha. I climbed out of the ditch, got back in my car and pulled out my AAA card. But my hands were shaking so hard that I could not even dial their number on my phone.
Just then, out of nowhere, a UPS truck appeared, driving toward me. The driver was a kind and intelligent man named Marcus, who could clearly see that I had a “small” problem.
He stood by me as I finally got through to AAA and actually talked to them to help pinpoint where in tarnation I was located. As a UPS driver, Marcus had excellent maps and he was able to tell them my exact location. I would not have been able to do this on my own.
The AAA folks said it would be about 35 minutes to get to me. And eventually, Marcus said he had to go make deliveries. So he left. About 10 minutes later, he returned to let me know that he had informed a nearby farmer of my situation. The farmer had a tractor and might have time to come and help me out. What a nice UPS guy!
Eventually the farmer, Richard Clifton, showed up with his tractor and his dog, Fin. He checked out my situation, but decided it would be best not to try to pull me out because he might damage my muffler. But, he waited right there with me until the AAA guy showed up, which he did finally … and with a huge truck and a bunch of chains. The farmer helped the AAA guy with the chains and they got me out. I regret that I did not get the AAA driver’s name – he did excellent work.
What a lucky person I was. I did a stupid thing and all these nice people came to help me. There are angels.
P.S. Also it turns out that the farmer, Richard Clifton, in addition to being an incredibly kind human being, is a well-known, highly acclaimed, award-winning wildlife artist.
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