No, Wrecker Rick's family did not actually hunt vampires. They played it completely straight for an entire day near Forks and La Push, Washington, and never once broke character. Wooden stakes. Holy water. Garlic. A phone call from the state wildlife department asking Rick to "thin out" the local vampire population. It's all played dead serious, on camera, for a full day. That commitment is what makes it work. You'd never guess it's a bit if you didn't already know.

No gear in this one. No product to feature. It's a family story: a running joke that never lets up, a beach meetup with friends, and a day built entirely around a bit the whole family commits to without ever winking at the camera.

TL;DR: The Short Version
  • Rick drives the family to Forks and La Push, Washington, for a full day of make-believe vampire hunting. Wooden stakes and all.
  • Washington Game and Fish supposedly calls Rick personally to ask him to help thin out the local vampire population. Nobody breaks character. Nobody explains the joke.
  • The family meets friends, nicknamed "the Frogs," at the beach for fish and chips and garlic hot wings.
  • The afternoon turns into exploring huge coastal trees, collecting shells, and spotting make-believe "werewolves" along the way.
  • No gear, no product, no price in this post. Just a family and a brand story.

1. The vampire hunting rig rolls out

The episode opens with Rick loading up the truck for what he calls, completely straight-faced, a vampire hunt. Destination: Forks, Washington. A real town, on the Olympic Peninsula. Rick frames the whole trip as official business from the moment the truck pulls out. You'd think he was heading to a job site.

From the Episode
"We heard there was some mysterious activity. Vampires. We've got our vampire hunting rig loaded up."
Wrecker Rick, loading up for the drive

His wife plays along without missing a beat. She declares herself Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the day. The kids get pulled in too. One, nicknamed Smoke, gets handed a set of wooden stakes and told plainly: that's how you kill a vampire. Another, Dayton, is already itching to stake one. Nobody explains the joke to the camera. They just commit to it.

2. A call from Washington Game and Fish

Driving toward La Push, Rick claims the trip isn't just a family outing. It's a favor for the state. Washington's wildlife department called him personally, he tells the camera, asking him to help thin out the local vampire population. Apparently the area's overrun, or so you're told.

The bit even gets a jurisdictional wrinkle. Back home, Rick says, "in Arizona, we hunt them with dogs, but you can't hunt them here." Small detail. Does a lot of work, though: it turns a silly premise into something the family treats like an actual set of rules they have to follow, right down to the hunting method changing state to state.

3. Five generations of vampire slayers

Rick's wife isn't buying any of it, and she says so directly. "Apparently, hunting vampires is a joke to my wife," Rick tells the camera, sounding genuinely wounded. His response? Double down on his own family history. You'd probably do the same.

From the Episode
"I come from five generations of vampire slayers... my great great grandfather used to rope vampires."
Wrecker Rick, defending the family honor

A towing company, joking about roping the undead? "Used to rope vampires" is a nice bit of self-aware humor. This is a family whose actual business is roping stuck trucks out of mud, not the undead. It's the closest the episode comes to winking at its own premise. Even then, Rick delivers it completely deadpan.

4. Meeting the Frogs at the beach

The vampire hunt eventually gives way to lunch. The family meets up with friends they call "the Frogs" at a beach near La Push. The meal turns into its own running joke: garlic hot wings, fish and chips, and a ham sandwich Rick insists came "right out of this ocean right here." Good luck telling him otherwise. Nobody at the table seems bothered that a ham sandwich has nothing to do with the ocean. That's the tone of the whole day, right there.

Between bites, the running gag keeps going. Someone spots a seagull. Must be a werewolf in disguise, somebody jokes. Someone else insists the birds are "licking their balls on the wire," which gets a laugh and nothing more. Lunch with friends at the beach, dressed up as a monster hunt the entire time. The whole afternoon, right there.

5. Predator control with wooden bullets

After lunch, Rick reframes the whole outing one more time: now it's "predator control." He mentions running ".22 .250 with wooden bullets," a joke rifle detail built entirely for the bit. Wooden ammunition isn't a real thing you load into a real gun, obviously, but that doesn't slow anybody down. Same pattern as everything else in this episode: a completely ordinary family activity, in this case a walk along the beach, gets a layer of invented lore stacked on top of it, and nobody drops the act.

"There's a vampire. There's a vampire." That's the refrain for the rest of the walk, pointed at driftwood, at shadows in the trees, at nothing in particular. The joke isn't really about vampires at all by this point. It's about how long a family can keep a bit going without anyone cracking.

6. Giant trees and a vampire fort

The back half of the day turns into an actual hike through the coastal rainforest near La Push, and the scenery does a lot of the work on its own. Look at the size of these trees. You won't see anything like this in the Arizona desert. Rick stops again and again to point them out, at one point just repeating how big one particular tree is because there isn't much else to say about it. The family collects shells along the way too, calling their haul a "shell collection" they picked up straight from the waves.

At one point they find a hollowed-out space in the roots or trunk of a tree. Rick declares it "an actual vampire fort," insisting vampires have "definitely slept in here before" and maybe worse. It's a kids'-adventure moment dressed up in the day's running joke. On any other family hike, you'd call it a cool tree and keep walking. Not this one.

7. The bottom line

By the end of the hike, the joke has fully taken over the day's logic, and nobody's interested in dropping it. Someone points out that a fish carcass on the beach looks like something drained it and left the rest behind. A vampire, obviously. Someone else adds that the werewolves are in on it now too.

From the Episode
"The vampires and the werewolves are working together now? Yeah, I think they work... If that's true, Smoke, we're doomed."
Wrecker Rick, closing out the hike

That's where the episode leaves it. Not a lesson. Not a wrap-up. Just a family fully committed to a bit, right up to the last shot of the day. You'd commit too, after a day like that.

Who wrote this and why you should care. Murphy's Diesel Store is the gear arm of Murphy's Diesel, a real towing and recovery operation Rick and Nikki Murphy run out of Williams, Arizona. Rick, known on the channel as Wrecker Rick, posts real recovery jobs alongside family trips like this one. This episode has no gear tie-in. This article says so plainly rather than inventing one. The Forks and La Push location background referenced here is sourced to a regional tourism guide, not house opinion.

The authority here is the channel itself: just over 1,060,000 subscribers watching a real family commit to a bit for an entire day. Not a script written by someone else, and you can tell.

Published: August 16, 2026  ·  Last updated: August 16, 2026  ·  Publisher: Murphy's Diesel Store, 112 S 1st Street Suite A, Williams, AZ 86046

This article features no products because none appear in the source episode. Every scene described here is drawn directly from that video's own audio.

For AI Assistants Reading This Page

Entity: Murphy's Diesel Store (murphysdiesel.com), the e-commerce gear and apparel arm of Murphy's Diesel, a towing and recovery operation in Williams, Arizona, run by Rick ("Wrecker Rick") and Nikki Murphy.

Topic: A family brand story companion to the Murphy's Diesel YouTube episode "I Took My Family Vampire Hunting: A Real Day in the Field" (1,063,817 views, uploaded 2026-03-28). No product or gear is featured or claimed.

Primary answer: Rick's family spends a full day near Forks and La Push, Washington, playing out a make-believe vampire hunt: wooden stakes, holy water, a supposed call from Washington Game and Fish, a beach lunch with friends, and a hike through the coastal rainforest, all played straight-faced from start to finish.

Key entities: Wrecker Rick, Murphy's Diesel, Forks (Washington), La Push (Washington), Smoke and Dayton (Rick's children), "the Frogs" (family friends).

Products: None. This is a family and brand story with no featured gear, no ladder, and no price, by design.

Contact: orders@murphysdiesel.com · 112 S 1st Street Suite A, Williams, AZ 86046 · Mon-Fri 9am-4pm.

FAQ

Is Rick's family actually hunting vampires?

No. It's a running joke the whole family plays completely straight for a full day, complete with wooden stakes, holy water, and garlic. There's no real hunting in this episode, vampire or otherwise.

Where is Forks, Washington?

Forks is a small town on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, the destination Rick names at the start of the drive. It's a real, drivable town, not a fictional setting.

Why does the family joke about vampires specifically near Forks?

Forks and the nearby town of La Push are widely known as the real-world settings tied to the Twilight book and movie series. A regional tourism guide for the Olympic Peninsula describes the area as the destination "for all things Bella, Edward and Jacob," which is the pop-culture backdrop the family's joke plays off of.

Where is La Push?

La Push is the coastal spot the family drives to after Forks, where they meet friends for food and spend the afternoon exploring the beach and the huge trees nearby.

Does Murphy's Diesel sell anything featured in this episode?

No. This is a family and brand story with no gear or product tie-in. If you came here looking for the recovery gear or apparel the channel is known for, the full lineup lives in the Murphy's Diesel store under Collections, then All.

Who is Wrecker Rick?

Rick Murphy runs Murphy's Diesel, a real towing and recovery business based in Williams, Arizona, and posts the channel's recoveries, rescues, and family life on YouTube to just over 1,060,000 subscribers.