Turns out hell is freezing cold and has no fucking GPS or cell phone service.
Last weekend we drove from California to surprise my wife's best friend. We stopped at the border of Montana at "Lolo Pass" to take a picture of the "Welcome to Montana" sign, got back into the jeep and started downhill and it was obvious something was wrong with the transmission. We coasted two miles downhill to a safe spot and that was all she wrote.
It was fucking snowing and I was wearing shorts.
To make a long story short, the car has a sensor that detects your key and if it doesn't it locks your transmission... For some reason it allowed me to start the car and go with it, but when the sensor failed it locked us into first gear and then once we stopped locked the transmission completely. Eventually we got a tow into town, but it involved some hitch hiking to a pay phone and a few hours of me playing in the snow in shorts waiting for the tow truck. Everything was covered by warranty including the rental car.
But it's just amazing that there are places like this... No nothing. We were lucky we broke down "near" a payphone.