I really didn’t need that. It made my heart  go wild and crazy, for all the wrong reasons.

Sunday morning – just a peek outside when I woke up showed me what a yucky day it was going to be, even more so after the wonderful day before. No bright sunlight today, just heavy rain, fog, wind and clouds. 😦

By early afternoon, we were on the road again heading back home for the work week ahead. It was an uncomfortable drive, not just because of the usual Sunday blues but because it was coming down so heavily. Visibility was terrible and you had to be hunched over the wheel, peering through the windshield to make sure you were on the road and in your lane.

Quite suddenly, an 18-wheeler zoomed by to our right splashing great amounts of water onto our path. Before I knew it, our car was fishtailing, slipping and sliding all over the highway, going from the extreme left to the right lane, then spinning out of control in circles before spinning right off the road onto the shoulder. It didn’t stop even there but continued into the now swampy, grassy undergrowth and kept going for about 50 feet before coming to a stop at a tree line.  [I understand now that the scary feat that our car performed was hydroplaning].

Thank goodness for the trees!

Heart beating fast, we checked ourselves. Wow, everything checked out okay. We hadn’t even been touched! Well, except in our rapidly beating hearts and scared-out-of-our-mind minds.

The car was pretty much stuck in the wet mud and would not budge. It was barely visible from the highway. But in this connected age it was not a great hardship to get help, get towed out of the mud and be on our way again. Especially when you consider the possible alternatives!

In that torrential rain and since we were in the boonies, traffic was sparse. Yet some cars stopped to inquire if they could help. Given that we were not easily visible, way off in the distance from the highway, the cars had to pass our location to even spot us. If they happened to see this car oddly stuck in the mud, they took the trouble to stop on the shoulder and back-up in that pouring rain to see if we needed a helping hand.  It would have been so much easier for them to keep on driving.

It begged the question, how many times have I  gone out of the way to help others – strangers at that – the way these folks had?

Need I even say how lucky, lucky, lucky we were? That was the first near-major accident I had ever been involved in and it (most definitely!) could have been so much worse. Just thinking about all the possible scenarios makes me sick to the stomach!

Kinda puts everything into perspective, it does…

Life is short, folks. Live gratefully.

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Our mini-adventure in pictures [click on a thumbnail to view the images]:

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