New2view's Blog   Life on The Blue Marble

Today’s weather report for Denver triggered memory of an unforgettable experience  year’s ago traveling to Oklahoma City from BC. As I reached the mile-high city of Denver a major snowstorm engulfed my old Mazda sedan. Doggedly I kept trucking on until past Denver elevated in the mountains. Huge snowflakes were falling so fast I could barely see as far as my headlights were showing. For awhile I managed to follow a few other cars, but the road was soon completely invisible. All we could do is hope the lead car we were following was still on the road, although the speed of the group was erratic to say the least. As we came over a sudden hill I was rapidly over-taking the car in front of me and had to ease off so quickly the heavy old Mazda began a long heart stopping uncontrolled slide right off the road! Miraculously hitting what appeared to be a short guard rail, (who knows what was beyond that barrier). The car literally bounced and slid back to what hopefully was the center of the road! There was no way to determine if I was even on the road now. All sense of position was gone, but at least there was absolutely no traffic in the opposite direction. In fact soon there was no traffic visible of any kind, not even cars to follow. I have no idea where others had gone. But now I was completely alone in a snowstorm of the century. I believed I had to keep going or they likely wouldn’t have found my frozen body until spring! The snow was several feet deep after only a few hours from beginning to fall. I drove on all night at about 30 mph with my eyes as big as saucers in a purely brainless survival mode. Finally. the highway began a long gradual decline down from the mountains. ] After hours of blind travel I found myself in bright morning sunshine with no snow in sight and soon caught up to miles of bumper to bumper two lane highway traffic. Where they had all come from I could not even guess. Perhaps because I was in a near catatonic state of mind after my night-long white-out travel, and because all that traffic was barely moving, I decided to travel down the opposite lane! I began flying past miles of barely moving bumper to bumper jammed traffic in the wrong lane, thankfully there was no oncoming traffic at all. Probably no one was heading up the road to snow-bound Denver. Exhaust from my oil-burning high mileage Mazda was leaving a well marked trail, like an old steam locomotive. I could not fully understanding why no one else was doing the same thing, in that empty opposite lane!? After passing several miles of crawling cars I realized I was sticking out like a sore thumb traveling in the wrong lane! Sure enough a highway patrol sheriffs’ car was coming up fast behind me with multi lights flashing so I quickly inserted myself in the right lane, finding a small gap in front of an 18 wheeler. Pulling over and stopping on the shoulder of the road, trying to hide, didn’t work. The State trooper had me cold. I can’t remember now if he gave me a ticket, or a warning, since technically all I did was legally pass everything on the road! However I do seem to remember a slight smirk on his face, apparently traveling down the wrong side of the highway passing everything on the road, for miles, leaving a telltale smoke trail isn’t exactly approved, even though I thankfully never encountered any conflicting traffic! As I mercifully managed to continue on to OK city, I was totally exhausted and falling asleep at the wheel, no matter how hard I fought to stay awake. Entering city limits on a multi-lane freeway in the far right lane, with an 18 wheeler at my side. He must have noticed my somewhat erratic driving and realized I was falling asleep at the wheel. Thankfully his rapidly blasting loud horn just barely managed to help me keep my head up and avoid going under his wheels. The truth is the driver of that rig saved my life! End of story.