Everybody Has a Story: Yelling helped solve mystery of God’s vehicle of choice

I had driven from Phoenix to take a new job and was accompanied by a transplanted Englishman named Roger. It had taken a little over two days to reach Portland, and once checked into our hotel, we decided to push on to see the Pacific Ocean.

We crossed over the Columbia River bridge into Washington and, with no particular destination in mind, meandered northward to the town of Long Beach. Purely on a whim, I veered off onto a bumpy side road, and we found ourselves on a hill overlooking the beach.

And then I saw it! A pickup truck much like mine, racing down the beach, its tires just touching the remnants of the waves. That brief glimpse seemed to exhibit a sense of freedom and exuberance that I wanted to share in, so I threw my truck into gear and lurched toward the beach.

An impending storm had not yet arrived, so the sand was relatively dry and stable as we bumped and bounced toward the water’s edge. When we reached the glistening portion of the beach moistened by the previous wave, I veered north and began skirting the surf, just as I had seen the other truck doing.

The water and sand combination created a driving surface that was as smooth as most highways. After traveling about a mile, I thought it might be a good idea to reverse direction so we wouldn’t lose the path that would return us to the highway, so I slowed down to a crawl and made a tight right turn. As our wheels left compacted wet sand for dry loose sand, we came to an abrupt halt.

The weight of the truck had buried the wheels right up to the hubs. Now I remembered that the truck I saw from the bluff was a four-wheel-drive vehicle while mine was not. We sat there for several seconds digesting our new circumstances. I was calm, taking comfort in the thought that at least we were in no danger.

“Terry, I think the tide is coming in!” Roger said. I looked out the rear window just in time to see our tire tracks being erased by a long tendril of water, just 6 feet away from the tailgate.

We bolted from the truck, dropped to our knees and began frantically digging the sand away from the tires. The storm that had been brewing for the last half-hour chose this moment to come to life, with huge droplets beginning to fall.

After scraping out a pathway for each wheel, I jumped back into the truck and tried backing out of the trap. The tires spun furiously, but nothing else moved. The surf was crashing in just a few feet away, so we both scampered for nearby driftwood to wedge under the wheels. With various pieces of wood sticking out under each wheel, I tried again to back out, and failed.

With a growing sense of panic, I looked up and down the beach for help, but there was none. I thought of jogging back to Long Beach to find a gas station with a tow truck, but I knew my vehicle would be submerged by then. No other options available, I raised my head to the rain and wind and yelled, “GOD, I COULD USE SOME HELP DOWN HERE!”

I looked up to see a truck bearing down on us where seconds earlier there had been nothing. It stopped and backed up. It was a four-wheel-drive Toyota! The driver was a man well over 6 feet tall, with a gray beard that hung down about 4 inches and gray-silver hair over his collar. Not saying a word, he carried a tow cable purposefully over to my truck just as it was being touched by the incoming tide. As I stammered out an explanation about this predicament, the man hooked his tow line around my rear bumper, then connected it to the rear of his truck.

Ignoring my ramblings, he got into his truck and slowly stretched the cable, hauling my truck out of the trap and onto moist compacted sand. As he got out to disconnect the cable, I tried to offer him money for his miraculous arrival. But he totally ignored me, returned to his truck and drove off, never having uttered a single word.

Roger and I climbed back into my truck and sat stunned over how quickly events had changed. As we watched the other truck disappearing into the mist, Roger turned to me and said in his most British accent, “Terry, you know, I think God drives a Toyota!”