That is incorrect. I could take the car out for a ride and I have all 4 gears plus the tc lockup. You just have to start the car in 1st and manually shift through all the gears. Hell once it's in Drive/4th it will downshift and upshift on it's own until you come to a stop again.
The day the forward band broke I finished driving the car home, then I drove it to the bowling alley and back cruising at 70 mph on the highway at ~1900 rpm. If I only had 2nd RPMs would have been much higher.
Regardless of that I think the best decision is for Rick to tow the car. It very possibly could make the 3 hour trip, but if the trans fails completely in the middle of no where then it could cost a lot more than just towing it the whole way.