After spending four marvelous days camping on the  scenic, wild Deschutes River in Oregon, I was mellow.

Vacationing with friends and family members, I  had floated down the river, set up camp on the river's edge, eaten well, and sipped some exceptional canned beers, the Caldera Pale Ale and IPA brewed in Ashland, Ore. When you are shooting rapids, or camping, canned beer is what you want.

Our two-vehicle caravan was headed back to Portland when car trouble struck.  We were tooling  along Route 216, headed toward Mount Hood, when the 2006 Toyota Land Cruiser that my friend Gary Hibler was driving suddenly lost power. Gary steered the SUV and the raft it was towing over to side of the road.  We couldn't tell what was wrong. The engine would start, run for few minutes, then die. The instrument panel gave no clues. A tow truck was summoned from Maupin, some 15 miles away. The women and children were put into the other vehicle in our caravan, a Chevy SUV, and sent onto Portland.

Meanwhile Gary, his brother Lee and I waited on the roadside for the tow truck. We were near a town called Bear Creek. Gary, who lives in Portland, reported he had once seen a bear in Bear Creek, not too far from where we were sitting.

One of us pulled out  a couple of folding chairs that were stowed in the raft.  Someone else fished around in the raft's cooler and pulled out some of the remaining canned beers. The Caldera was gone. Lee and Gary had Coors Light. I had Pilsner Urquell. We cracked the beers, sat in the cool shade of the Oregon pine forest, and waited to be towed.

Just as the beers were drained, the tow truck arrived and took us into Portland. The  bear never showed. It was the best waiting-to-be towed experience  of my life.

Anyone else have a waiting-to-be-rescued story?

Anyone else tried these Caldera brews? The IPA, which the brewer says is aggressively hopped, was my favorite.  It had Simcoe, Centennial and Amarillo hops, and was 6.1 percent ABV.