Remember “‘Mater“ from the Disney movie, “Cars?” He was the rusty old Tow truck, hence his name from Tow-Mater. Well today we were on our afternoon ride on “Purple” when we passed a big shiny new Red and White ‘Mater and his big brother Big Blue ‘Mater. Big Blue ‘Mater had his cable strung out into the desert near Mojave, California. In fact it disappeared into a very deep drainage ditch alongside Highway 14.
We were riding the frontage road that parallels the freeway for a couple miles. When we reached the end we spotted two more ‘Maters coming down the freeway from the north. These ‘Maters were orange. From our vantage point it looked like the orange ‘Mater brothers pulled in beside the red white and blue ‘Mater brothers. We hurried back to the fishing hole.
By the time we got back both of the big Brother ‘Maters had their cables laid out and were fishing in the same drainage ditch. We were on the far side of the freeway so we couldn’t see what they were using for bait, but soon their lines came up tight and they started pulling together. After a while the shiny red top of a big rig Peterbuilt began to show above the sage brush. We would stand and watch a while then go ride another 4 mile loop on the frontage road.
Eventually they were able to drag the whole 18 wheeler up onto the highway. It was quite an operation. They had all four tow trucks attached from time to time. They mostly used the smaller ‘Maters to stabilize the rig while they repositioned the Big ‘Maters for another pull.
I call them smaller, but they probably would be suitable for towing Arcturus; He probably only weighs a third the weight of one of those 18 wheelers.

For those of you who have been waiting anxiously; Here is my annual summary of our travels for 2011.
Bike: 382 miles
Walk: 566 miles
Arcturus: 12,137 miles – A big loop trip to the EAA Fly-In in Oshkosh, WI
100 stops
121.4 miles for an average day’s drive
Year – – Arcturus – – – Walk – – – Bike
2004 – – 04,053 – – – – n/a – – – – 777
2005 – – 18,738 – – – – 56 – – – – 1318
2006 – – 10,548 – – – -183 – – – – 1795
2007 – – 13,375 – – – -240 – – – – 1900
2008 – – 10,465 – – – – 35 – – – – 2097
2009 – – 10,504 – – – -235 – – – – 2086
2010 – — 6,051 – – – -256 – – – – -552
2011 – – 12,137 – – – -566 – – – – -382
Grand total for eight years on the road…98,549 miles driving, walking and riding. (Doesn’t count Little Blue’s miles.)