Scariest drive ever!
Jan. 13th, 2005 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenSo it's been foggy all day today and you think that would make something register in my head but it doesn't. Because where I work it wasn't so bad, and even though some of the patients coming in said it was worse up north I just cross this off in my head as meaning north in my town and not north as a general concept.
Now guess who had belly dance class tonight? In a town fifty minutes northwest of where she lives?
Yeah, that'd be me.
So I start out driving and it's not so bad, but maybe 10-15 min into it we start getting into bursts of pea soup. Nothing too intense yet, but just enough where I have a few seconds of "Crap, this is foggy" and then it clears up enough for driving again. So, like the slot machine that this is, it keeps encouraging me to keep going since I keep getting a payoff of a bit of clear driving if I push through the fog.
Then I get to the 20-25 min away zone. The fog thickens up and only gets thicker. I push on thinking that maybe it'll clear soon but it just gets worse. It finally gets so dense that I literally can't see past the front bumper of my car.
Obviously at this point the only sane thing to do is turn around and go home. Except the fog is so thick I can't. All I can do is go forward, because I can't tell if there's space on the side of the road to pull over, or a driveway, or anything.
I finally catch a break and spot a street sign to my left when there's no oncoming traffic. I turn into that, pull into a driveway that's thankfully right there, and try to call my teacher's cell to let her know I'm not coming (past experience has shown that I'm often the only person there, so if I can call and save her the dangerous drive I'm going to).
Back home again. The only way I can navigate the road is by going slow and keeping an eagle eye on the lines that mark the middle and side of the road. Intersections, which is where the lines stop, are like being dumped into the middle of nowhere. I can't even orient myself enough to make sure I'm staying in my lane (straight's not an option when the roads are as curvy as this). Luckily no cars are coming, but that's also an irony b/c if they were I could at least tell where the lane for opposing traffic was.
At one point I nearly drive straight into an SUV (slowly, but even so) because its driver decided to make a U-turn in the middle of the road, and with the fog as thick as it was and the truck at a 90 degree angle to me, I can't see the front or back lights and the thing's invisible. Fortunately I hit the brakes in time, and fortunately I have good brakes.
I work my way home at a snail's pace, driving blind almost all the way, and here I am. A little rattled, but thankfully no worse for wear. I tell ya, it was so bad I would have pulled over and gone into a motel or bed and breakfast for the night, except with the fog as bad as it was I couldn't see those either.
I'm sorry I had to miss class, but I'm glad I got home safe.
Whew!
Now guess who had belly dance class tonight? In a town fifty minutes northwest of where she lives?
Yeah, that'd be me.
So I start out driving and it's not so bad, but maybe 10-15 min into it we start getting into bursts of pea soup. Nothing too intense yet, but just enough where I have a few seconds of "Crap, this is foggy" and then it clears up enough for driving again. So, like the slot machine that this is, it keeps encouraging me to keep going since I keep getting a payoff of a bit of clear driving if I push through the fog.
Then I get to the 20-25 min away zone. The fog thickens up and only gets thicker. I push on thinking that maybe it'll clear soon but it just gets worse. It finally gets so dense that I literally can't see past the front bumper of my car.
Obviously at this point the only sane thing to do is turn around and go home. Except the fog is so thick I can't. All I can do is go forward, because I can't tell if there's space on the side of the road to pull over, or a driveway, or anything.
I finally catch a break and spot a street sign to my left when there's no oncoming traffic. I turn into that, pull into a driveway that's thankfully right there, and try to call my teacher's cell to let her know I'm not coming (past experience has shown that I'm often the only person there, so if I can call and save her the dangerous drive I'm going to).
Back home again. The only way I can navigate the road is by going slow and keeping an eagle eye on the lines that mark the middle and side of the road. Intersections, which is where the lines stop, are like being dumped into the middle of nowhere. I can't even orient myself enough to make sure I'm staying in my lane (straight's not an option when the roads are as curvy as this). Luckily no cars are coming, but that's also an irony b/c if they were I could at least tell where the lane for opposing traffic was.
At one point I nearly drive straight into an SUV (slowly, but even so) because its driver decided to make a U-turn in the middle of the road, and with the fog as thick as it was and the truck at a 90 degree angle to me, I can't see the front or back lights and the thing's invisible. Fortunately I hit the brakes in time, and fortunately I have good brakes.
I work my way home at a snail's pace, driving blind almost all the way, and here I am. A little rattled, but thankfully no worse for wear. I tell ya, it was so bad I would have pulled over and gone into a motel or bed and breakfast for the night, except with the fog as bad as it was I couldn't see those either.
I'm sorry I had to miss class, but I'm glad I got home safe.
Whew!