One Story from Our Trip to Florida

 1/19/24

One story from our drive to and from Florida;


It's been quite a long while since Sue and I have done any serious driving on the interstate system and when we last did it, I was doing all the driving.  Fast forward a century and Sue is now doing all the driving. I'm in the navigator role, checking maps, watching for “idiots with a driver's license” coming up behind us.  Boy has things changed!  Back in the day, “5-7 over the speed limit” was the norm.  Now, that will get you seriously rear ended, and that’s if you're in the slow-lane!  


Sue quickly adapted to the advanced technology our new-used van had come equipped with.  With a speed limit at 70mph you would expect for the majority of the traffic to be tooling along at say 75-78mph in the fast lane. Not so!  Now, the slow lane is for those who dodder along at 75-78, the middle lane is populated with those going in the 76-84mph range and they’ve added a third lane where the speeds seem to range 80-90mph+.  Those who drive 90+ use all three lanes.  I say all this so you can better picture the scene I am about to describe;  


We were somewhere in one of those interstate spaghetti bowl interchanges like what Atlanta has, Sue’s doing “5-over”, the posted limit is 70mph.  The highway is 3 lanes, but with long entrance and exit lanes, you often have 4-5 lanes of traffic all going in the same direction.  Traffic was at that sweet spot of maximum capacity but not so much as to cause anyone to back off on the pedal. Sue had us in lane 2 and it looked like something out of the Daytona 500 coming out of the last turn before the finish line!  Everybody was going hammer down with the young ‘n foolish slingshotting using all available lanes on their quest for a close casket funeral.


A motorhome Mcmansion pulling a tricked out toy-hauler came up behind us, drifted into lane 3 and passed us handily.  When it was maybe 50-60ft ahead of us, but still in lane 3, things got really interesting - the side door of the toy-hauler blew open dumping a considerable amount whatever they had leaning against it out into lane 2.  There was no time to hit the brake or swerve.  We blew through the cloud of stuff with 3 bowling ball size pieces going under the van making a tremendous racket but only two coming out the back. The 3rd one was wedged between the front passenger tire and the wheel well.  At 75mph, the friction of the tire rubbing against the object immediately filled the cabin with the odor of burning rubber. Sue did wonderful, slamming on the brakes and worked us over to the edge of the highway without colliding with any of the other vehicles swerving to miss the flying objects. 

Once safely off the highway, I got out and inspected the front and undercarriage for damage (none), and found the object lodged tightly in the wheel well.  It took a few minutes of Sue turning the steering wheel back and forth and me pulling/prying on the object to finally get it free.  It was a white Star Wars helmet.  The Lord must have been looking out for us because if the helmet had lodged just maybe 2 inches over, Sue would have not been able turn the steering wheel and this story would have a whole different ending.   You just never know when you will be taken or given another day.

bobb



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