Mason. ready for the FLY!
We spent last weekend in Fresno/Clovis for the Valley swim meet. Marc has a group of choir students who wanted to sing for their teacher so he asked me to drive them up later to the swim meet. He and Candice took two vans up earlier in the day. We left Bakersfield about 9 pm and stared the trek northward on 99. I do not love driving. I do not love driving at night. I hate driving large vehicles. Soooo, we were traveling about 75mph in the fast lane (99 is packed for the entire day and most of the night) when the large vehicle in front of me -side note I have a phobia of not being able to see in front of me. I feel claustrophobic when I am behind a huge truck or SUV with tinted windows and am blocked from seeing what is ahead.- well the large gold truck swerves and it looks like there is a refrigerator box in the middle of the fast lane. The first thought that came into my mind was you can't slam on your brakes or the kids in the back row will be killed by the driver behind you. I thought well I will just hit it. There was a cement barrier on my left and the lane to my right was already occupied with other vehicles. As I came closer I realized it was a brown couch. I swerved but clipped the edge and went into snow mode taught me by my driver's ed. teacher from Box Elder High School. We tipped a bit and were up on two wheels but for some blessed reason we did not flip. After we were back in our lane, driving straight down the road, I could not move. I had the white-knuckle death grip on the steering wheel and could barely catch my breath. About 4 minutes later I was able to pull over and had Jordan go check the damage. The large school van had sustained damage but was working fine. We drove the rest of the way in a pretty silent vehicle and I told the kids 1)if you believe in someone bigger than us then you need to say a prayer of thanks because the only reason we are here is from his grace 2) if you don't have on your seat belt put it on now. I truly feel blessed because as any of my children will attest to. I am probably in the bottom 10 drivers in the state. I get in my car and go to where I need to be and never enjoy the ride. Cars are a necessary evil in my book of getting from point A to point B. Nevertheless, I was grateful for the watchful eye of my Heavenly Father on that night to help. The remaining hour of the drive I just kept thinking how grateful I was to be driving them to the swim meet, and not calling their parents to come meet us at the hospital. Sometimes moments in life that make us grateful for simply being alive need to happen. I was also very grateful for the students in the van and their calmness during our near tragedy.
The rest of the weekend was great and I love watching swim meets. When Jordan first started swimming I thought they were long and boring. I now appreciate the amazing skill and technique involved in swimming and think it is a beautiful thing to watch their bodies gliding through the water. Mason qualified for finals with his relay team and took time off of his 100 fly so he had a good meet.
4 comments:
I had to go to a drives safety class a couple years ago and you almost did exactly what they guy said you should do, just hit it. He said most major accidents are caused when people try to swerve to not hit something. Generally orange cones that might put a little dent in your car. He said the general rule is that if you are bigger than it, hit it, including cats, dogs, and any other small to medium sized animals. Glad you survived.
Wow, that is amazingly scary!
I HATE driving too!! It was actually nice this morning, Zac drove us to church. He has done it enough times that I ride with every muscle in my body clenched. In fact I filed my fingernails this morning.
Wow - that must have been terrifying. I can't even imagine. I used to not be scared of driving but now that I don't have to drive up two freeways to and from work everyday I tend to be more cautious on the freeway. I too am glad that Heavenly Father was protecting you that night. Hopefully it was a good lesson for the kids in the car.
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