Almost Heaven..

.or one of those places. I'm not sure what was up. Almost bought the farm. I guess I was doing something besides driving. These roads near me have bluffs on one side, drop off the edge on the other. No nice shoulder at all on many stretches.

And I was on just such a stretch when I looked up to see I was already off and heading toward an outcropping in the bluffs, and a very nasty bunch of holes or craters in the bit of shoulder. There is not even space to pull over so if you are partly off the road, you messed up.

I swerved left to avoid collision and hopefully not let the wheel be swallowed by the crazy, craggy dip. It caught part of it and when the wheel made it out the car went waay left. Good thing no one was coming the other way. Had I been in one of the old Jeeps it would have rolled. I got back on the right line without further over-control issues. I'm not sure I had a choice about swing to the left lane. I needed a radical change of angle to best avoid bigger trouble.

Unfortunately this car has wheel covers which I hate. I need to get the steel spoke wheels. I don't want the fancy alloys. I like the basic steel with four or five spoke things. Simple and less easy to ruin. My old car had those and I meant to switch them off to this car, but by the time I figured out how, I would have to go to some border town and bring jack stands, jacks, etc. and do it myself so I put it off and forgot. Dumb choice.

The stupid wheel covers are there but a bit the worse for wear. What really troubles me is that this is what you are supposed to do drunk, and I'm not drunk. Another milli second and it could have been nasty. That was the kind of terrain that can cause a flip, a dead stop into the side of a cliff, or worse. And I could have careened into an oncoming car or truck. I was lucky.

Actually I was amazed that I was able to get it back on the road at all. I thought it was too late and no way I could miss that ugly dip.

It is not usual that I am that careless and distracted. I hardly ever answer the phone while driving. If I do I slide it open to speaker and leave it on the passenger seat. So, it wasn't phone foolishness.

I think it was because I was on the way to do some work and I was preoccupied with the blues. I'm pretty sure I will one day not be so lucky, and that will be that. Hopefully I can get something worthwhile done before then. I'd hate to leave a useless mess behind.

I'll pay better attention from now on. It was a close one and quite surprising.