In my travels (or wanderings, if you will), I have managed to drive in many different countries, in many different climates, weather conditions, road conditions, no-road conditions, with a variety of different tempermented drivers, some who wanted to kill me... some who just drove like they wanted to kill me... or themselves...or anyone else on the road. But last week I had a totally new experience that was so eerie I just have to share it with you.
We were carrying hot asphalt from the Swirling Epicenter to a resurfacing operation on some county roads on the back side of the Big Hill. Working in elevations between 8500 and 9700 ft. It was starting to rain and thunder clouds were building so we were signed out at the paver and heading for home. It really started coming down hard...my wipers were barely able to keep up with it. Then it turned into ... well...not hail 'cause it was too loose...not sleet 'cause it wasn't wet enough...not snow...well...maybe snow...real wet snow...anyway, I was tooling up a slight hill hoping to get enough traction to get over the top so I could get to the highway. Now here is where it gets strange.
I had to stop about 100 yards from where I would join up with Hwy 67, which would take me to the big highway that would take me to the Swirling Epicenter. There was a van stopped in front of me...a van stopped in front of him...a van pulling a horse trailer in front of him and that was as far as I could see around the curve. No one was moving...for a while. I thought maybe the horse trailer van guy might be afraid and was about to offer to drive his van out of my way for him when the two vans between us pulled out of line and went around horse trailer van. I got out and walked up far enough to see what was around the bend and get good and soaked. At the stop sign, a car had slid into the little ditch and was stuck, blocking our road. Turns out the two vans who had been between me and horse trailer guy were from the county jail...work project of some sort...any how, two van loads of prisoners poured out onto the snow and helped push the stuck car out. Then they jumped back into their van and they took off. Leaving only horse trailer guy and me...and about ten other trucks and cars behind me.
I waited for horse trailer guy to pull up, but he didn't. I was about to reinstate my attempted offer to drive for him when he found his courage and puttered off leaving just me and my followers. Did I mention we were in the mountains? Did I mention that I was sitting on a hill...facing downhill? I was. And that made absolutely no difference to my baby Mack...she would not go. Sitting on a hill facing down hill, there was so much snow and ice built up around my drive tires that I could get no traction at all. I rocked, I rolled, I said incantations, finally I got out my shovel and begain digging the snow away from my drive wheels. It wasn't easy because Mama Nature was shoveling snow and ice back in there at an alarming pace. But after about 15 minutes, I tried it again, rocking, rolling, incanting...and while putting about 5000 miles of wear on those tires to move about 5 feet, we finally slid, rolled, and rocked down the hill. The stop sign is at the bottom of the hill, the highway goes up hill from there...I didn't stop. By the time I got to Woodland Park there was no sign of the weather that was up the hill, a little sprinkling of warm summer rain was all they had gotten.
So, after 43 years of professional driving, a new experience...I had to dig out of a snow bank to move down hill...in a blizzard...on a beautiful July day that had just an hour before been in the high 70's. What a day.