Ahhh......vanagon driving and the asphalt mosh pit....   While doing my own
day-dreaming
driving down to my home town in the California Central Valley down 99 from
Sacramento to
the exciting no where town of Manteca I was slightly aware of a golf course
on my right
when bouncing right in front of me was a golf ball from the same.   Kind of
wakes you up.
But not like the time I'm driving my wife and I down I-5 toward the
I-50/I-80 (not the "the 50"
you morons) interchange to get us going West towards Lake Tahoe, I had a
unloaded big rig decide to move over into our lane without warning while we
were half way along side his trailer.   I still am not sure how I slowed
and swerved to get out of that one.  We were in my
wife's 2002 Prius.   :O
Another time had has driving a 4 lane side street heading toward the
freeway entrance
( Not a vanagon but an 86 Nissan Sentra) when this clown decides to pull
out from a side
street with a trailor load and I though, for sure, we were going to t-bone
him.  At
the last second I yanked the wheel left and we swerved around his front to
miss him by
inches.   I can still see him mouthing the word "sorry..."      Tell that
to my wife and my
underwear....

Steven
91 Westy

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 3:23 PM, Aristotle Sagan <killer.jupiter@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Just coming down 101 from Windsor CA this morning, a beautiful day, the top
> down on the Mercedes after a long weekend of wine tasting and spending time
> with friends... SUV pulls in from the third lane to the second lane, right
> into the blind spot of a huge box truck who decides he is going to move
> from the first to second lane at that point. Hit the brakes on the 500SL
> and let things happen as they were going to, ready to hit the left median
> if needed... Truck finally saw the SUV, inches to spare. All I can think is
> the idiot in the SUV had no idea what he did wrong... and sped along his
> way.
> Life is interesting out there on the 6 lane.
>
> tim in san jose
>
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 10:37 AM, Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Driving first. It occurred to me on the way home Saturday that I got my
> > license fifty years ago this month, possibly on that date, and that I'd
> > seen and survived a lot of crazy stuff on the roads in that time: a
> > three-car pileup unfolding in front of me with cars going every which
> way;
> > all sorts of things falling out of pickups and off trailers, a highway
> > grasscutting rig trying unsuccessfully to cross I-26 before an 18-wheeler
> > got there; a fishtailing U-haul trailer slinging an oncoming Mercedes
> > across my path and off the road completely; various insane antics on
> ice; a
> > car caroming off a Jersey wall and then across three lanes of I-95, and
> > probably much more I can't now recall, but until that afternoon I had
> never
> > seen a car fall from the sky to block my lane.  At least that's what it
> > looked like at the moment.
> > Heading through Pennsylvania on I-81 you travel through many rock cuts
> > where you have a breakdown lane, a narrow sloping shoulder and not much
> > else except rock wall on either side.  We'd left the two lane roads and
> had
> > hit the highway mid-afternoon to try making some time getting home, with
> > moderately heavy traffic moving well and the WBX working hard but no
> match
> > for the string of big rigs, RVs, motorcycles and everything else passing
> us
> > on the left. I was in the midst of one of those heading home reveries
> > (gotta finish building the wood shed, then I have to split all the wood
> to
> > fill it, then...) when into my field of view dropped a white lump of an
> SUV
> > that provided one of those incredulous "What the hell am I seeing?"
> > moments. A Nissan Murano had evidently been on a parallel road adjacent
> to
> > and above the interstate and went out of control, went off that road and
> > plunged down the hillside and squarely into my lane of I-81. With scant
> > time to react I managed to brake, swerve right and get by the still
> > tumbling lump.  I stopped just past it and ran back to render assistance.
> > Miraculously, the driver survived, no one hit the Nissan or me, and other
> > drivers also stopped and the authorities eventually arrived to sort
> things
> > out.  I calculate that if the tumble had occurred one second later I
> would
> > not have had time to veer and would have plowed into the Nissan.  Two
> > seconds later and it would have landed on us.  Three seconds later it all
> > would have happened in my rearview mirror.
> > Prior to that it had been a nice trip.  We went up through Pennsylvania,
> > stopping at one of their fine state parks on the way to New York.  We got
> > to Watkins Glen SP on Tuesday and did some exploring.  Too late by a
> couple
> > of days for Westies at Watkins, we went to the track anyway and got to
> > watch a Porsche club having a midweek track day.  Rich kids' recess. We
> > stayed at four NY parks total on two different lakes (Watkins Glen and
> > Sampson parks on Seneca Lake, and Taughannock Falls and Cayuga parks on
> > Cayuga Lake) and had fun hiking, antiquing and generally being out of
> touch
> > for a week. The beautiful weather was a treat after the stifling summer
> > here, and the scenery was lovely.  The van ran fine for the 1,400+ miles
> > and returned about 18.5 MPG for the trip. We did get a tense moment with
> a
> > blinking red coolant light on Sunday morning but I topped off both
> > reservoirs and that problem went away. Thirty minutes after arriving home
> > and unloading last evening the Anniedog was back in the van, ready to
> take
> > off again. I'm with her.
> > Stephen
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Where ever you are, there you be. Unless you're driving my van, in which
> case, you ain't got there yet.
>