02/10/2025
This past Saturday I was out as with for their show at the beautiful (Staten Island). What an amazing sounding mid size venue! And their crew are crazy accommodating. I was spoiled. After the show, readying the band for load out, I checked outside to find the snow had come down thick, temp had dropped, and things were freezing. BTW, Staten Island has some hilly streets.
So on we go, trepidatiously making our way back to Philly. About half way the van engine decides to loose all oil pressure and the battery light comes on. Stalled, coasting on the turnpike of slush and with severely low visibility, we pull off to the side. On top of that, there’s an entrance ramp on our right. Not a great spot to stop.
About half an hour later a flatbed truck slid into position in front of us, lights on like a scene from Close Encounters, and proceeded to back up. After a short conversation, the driver suggests, instead of him pulling us to the next exit to get a hotel, that he take us home. Of course it’s expensive, but at 2:30am in a snow storm, that sounded just fine. Besides it would have cost more to get hotel rooms snd have it all towed back the next day. He said “you can sit up front with me”, until it was mentioned there were five of us. So we wound up riding in our van, ON TOP OF THE FLATBED, with a front window sun shade in place to block as much of the strobing light as possible. With the trailer in tow, we were whisked down the snowbound turnpike at around 65mph. Probable about twice the speed we originally were traveling before the engine gave out. Thankfully we arrive back in Philly around 3:30, not bad considering the predicament we had been in. Sleep felt soooo gooood.
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