Holiday traveling is absolute madness. Thank God, we made it
home. Safe, sound and alive. It was a miracle because every lunatic
driver with a death wish was on the road Sunday.
Needing to unwind from the rigors of daily life, Jim and I drove
to Reno over the Labor Day weekend to see his daughter’s family who
moved to Nevada last year. And there just
”
happened
”
to be a Model A Ford event in Carson City at the same time.
Holiday traveling is absolute madness. Thank God, we made it home. Safe, sound and alive. It was a miracle because every lunatic driver with a death wish was on the road Sunday.
Needing to unwind from the rigors of daily life, Jim and I drove to Reno over the Labor Day weekend to see his daughter’s family who moved to Nevada last year. And there just “happened” to be a Model A Ford event in Carson City at the same time.
Now we’re old enough to know better than to do the hammer-down run on Interstates 5 and 80 to Reno on a major holiday weekend, so we took the scenic routes over the Sierras on Route 108 and on the way back we took Route 88 to avoid the crazies. And for the most part, we did. We only had two moments of automotive terror, one in Sonora and two right here in San Benito County.
Actually, only one was in San Benito and the other was in Santa Clara at the intersection of Highway 152 and 156. That was a close call. We were behind two trucks in the left-turn lane waiting to enter Highway 156 toward Hollister. The first driver made his turn in plenty of time and didn’t interfere with oncoming traffic. However, the second driver nearly caused an accident that would have made the nightly news. The second driver decided to follow the first driver without any consideration for the lives of others.
Imagine the terror of screeching tires and the horrified look on the faces of these drivers facing possible death – it was enough to make you wish you were the “Terminator.”
The drivers on Highway 152 had to stop or crash into the side of this tractor-trailer. Instead, we took down his license plate number, the name of the company and the cab number because these types of trucks usually have two license plate numbers, and we called the company and made a formal complaint.
Another thing that is very noticeable about the drivers in California is most of them do not have any respect for emergency vehicles. It seems the only flashing lights California drivers might be inclined to pull over for is law enforcement and that’s somewhat iffy.
While waiting for the light to turn in Sonora, we heard a siren off in the distance. Looking in the direction from where it was coming, we could see flashing red lights and a big red fire engine racing down the street.
This was an emergency run that nearly turned tragic when the driver of another vehicle decided to out-run the fire truck and cross the road. Even though the driver in the car couldn’t hear us, we couldn’t help ourselves. We screamed all sorts of bad things. “What an idiot! What a jerk!” Both of us wanted to knock some sense into this guy.
But honestly, people. If you see an emergency vehicle, get out of the way and give these people the right of way, you never know if you might need one yourself some day and for all those times you disregarded the emergencies of others, well, it just might come back and bite you back in the butt. Karma baby, Karma.
I’ve discovered life outside Linda’s Last Chance Ranch is incredibly dangerous and the older I get the safer I feel among animals and the more apprehensive I become around these road terrorists who want to maximize their enjoyment of a holiday weekend. Is it really worth a body bag?
