HI MOM,

You ain't dead yet, or we woulda put posies on your grave too.


Speaking of dead, glad I am that neither my Subaru or I are. When I saw that big Chevy SUV 4 car lengths ahead and three lanes to the right suddenly take a hard left and start heading in the wrong direction, directly in my lane, I had time to think that with both of us going 65 it was not going to be pretty. When the car two lanes to the right swerved to miss him, she hit the car one lane to the right, which got knocked all the way to the left berm, hitting the chevy, now going in the opposite direction in my lane, and also knocked the Chevy to the left berm, thus clearing him out of my lane, and I squeaked through, missing impact by about 6 inches and a split second, and able to steer over to the berm and out of the way before I got rear-ended. Not sure whose bumper it was, but it flew over my car and landed safely out of traffic.

The mostly badly damaged vehicle had come to a stop immediately opposite me on the right berm. Smoke was pouring from the car, and the young girl behind the wheel was just sitting there, conscious, but looking dazed.   I ran across the freeway before traffic started moving through again to check on her. (I have no idea how well I would have remembered any of my first responder training - boy, I'm glad it wasn't needed.)

By the time the police were there and were finished taking statements, traffic was moving again in all 4 lanes, and there I was, on the opposite side of the highway from my car. It felt quite grand to have the nice policeman stop all 4 lanes of traffic again, just so little ol' me could get back across the road.