The rescue that was not......

6:34 am - Sunday - March 26th - GNHS - 53° F, humidity 53%, wind 5 mph out of the northeast.......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Augusta, GA standing on hallowed ground at Augusta National Golf Course, home of The Masters golf tournament......

We kind of thought Saturday would be busy, but it turned out to be really BUSY!!  By 11 am we had rented all 5 UTV's (4 RZRs and 1 KRX).....tw0 were of the 'all day' variety, and three of them the 4 hour variety.  As the last RZR rolled out of the staging area I turned to TLE and said "I hope they all return with out incident".

Our first return of the day was scheduled for 2:15 pm (the KRX), but around 1:30 pm we noticed their satellite tracker had not moved for almost an hour, and by 2:15 pm they were still at the Pinnacles, at least 45 minutes away.  Since they had not moved for over an hour we had to assume something was wrong.  Our attempts to contact them by phone and text bore no fruit, so I was in the Mule shortly thereafter driving to the Pinnacles.  I still had cellular service when I turned to go north through the 'Wash', and saw their tracker had still not moved.  I was at the 'Trestle' around 2:50 pm where I walked to the top of the trestle to get a cell signal, was successful, and called TLE. By the time I contacted her it was 3 pm, and the tracker had still not moved.  From the 'Trestle' it is about 15-20 minutes to the Pinnacles so I headed out again, reaching the turn for the Pinnacles trail around 3:15 pm.  Just as I began the drive up to the Pinnacles I gave up a silent prayer that I would find them quickly......the words were still hanging in the proverbial air when I heard a UTV coming toward me.....as they rounded the bend I could see it was our red KRX, and all seemed to be fine.  

Our customers did not recognize me, and passed by at a pretty good rate of speed, so I turned around and tried to keep up, but didn't catch them until they stopped at the 'Trestle' for  a break. I parked the Mule, and walked up to them asking if everything was alright, all the while knowing it must be since the KRX appeared to be in fine operating condition.  They replied it was, and I told them we had expected them back at 2:15 pm, and since they didn't return we thought, quite appropriately, something was wrong.  They apologized, admitting they should have called to say they would be late.  I was a tad angry (keeping that to myself), but grateful nothing was wrong, as one might imagine.

I headed back to the COA office while our customers hung out with their friends.  I was back in less than 20 minutes with our customers finally arriving around 3:45 pm.....90 minutes late.  Our policy, stated in the contract they sign, is if you are 20 minutes late you pay an extra $50, but if you are over 20 minutes late you pay for a full day.  TLE advised them, and they accepted the penalty graciously, at least it seemed so.  In the end we had 3 all day rentals, and two 4 hour rentals....a nice monetary day for our bosses.

Upon arrival back a the COA office around 3:30 pm I began driving UTVs down to the fuel station to top off their tanks, and had all 5 UTVs fueled for another day by 4:15 pm.  We got two more advance bookings for Sunday so I took two RZRs over to the wash station to get them cleaned, and ready to go.  I decided to wash the other three after our Sunday customers head out on their 4 hour tours.

On the sports front Scottie Scheffler, Rory McElroy, Sam Burns, Cam Young reached the semi finals of the WCG 'match play' event in Austin, TX, which will conclude on Sunday.  On the 'March Madness' front, there was another huge upset Saturday on the first day of the 'Elite Eight'  with #9 Florida Atlantic University (never heard of them before this year) besting #3 Kansas State by 3 points as time ran out.  #3 Gonzaga was downed by #4 UCONN by 28 points....not what we expected at all.  At one point UCONN led Gonzaga by almost 40 points.

On the getting ready to haul anchor front, I didn't stow anything away on Saturday.  I'll complete the task of getting the trailer ready for VW insertion on Monday and Tuesday, then we'll drive into Ontario, CA on Wednesday to catch our evening flight to Atlanta, GA. Our time here is fast coming to any end!

Thanks for stopping by!