Spinning down that highway of life

I'd like to take a moment to write down some thoughts I've had the past couple of days. Our family was involved in an accident Friday night while heading down the freeway in the rain. It was one of those experiences that cause you to evaluate your life and the path you are on.

We had left a nice dinner at my cousin Stephanie's house on Friday night and it was starting to rain pretty hard. We were headed to Deep Creek to spend a nice weekend up at our parents vacation home before fall settled in. It was around 9:30 when we left and the rain was coming down hard. Christy and I turned on the Mckain Obama debate and listened to it while we drove. We had a long drive ahead of us and I wanted to make it as quick as possible before I got too sleepy. I know how dangerous sleep and driving are and that you can't do both of them together very well.

Christy had a car accident in the rain when she was in high school, lost control of the car, jumped the median, and nearly hit a metro bus coming from the opposite direction, before crashing into a tree on the other side of the street. I've been a little more cautious since moving out East when I felt my altima skid around a corner or two that I would normally have taken fine while in Idaho or Utah. I quickly learned that the roads were a bit more slick out here when it rained, I figured it had something to do with the humidity.

So I was driving, fast at first, passing many cars that were driving too cautiously for others good in my opinion. I was going about 70 most of the way. After the debate Christy laid the seat back to try to sleep. Bryce had fallen asleep in his seat, and Carter was actually already at the lake house with his grandparents, he had gone the day before. About two hours after leaving, with the rain coming off and on, the road was definitely wet the whole way. We came around a slight turn in the freeway and the unexpected happened. Traveling at about 70, the rear of the car started to come around from the right and the car started steering to the left. I was in shock.

This can't be happening. Try to steer into the skid. Let off the gas. Don't brake or else that will make this worse. CRAP this isn't working. (The car continued to turn until it was completely sideways to the freeway) Oh my gosh I can't believe this!!! We are going to flip this going 70!!! Get ready to flip. Will we survive this if we flip at this speed?! We are going to die!!! I can't believe I am going to kill my family! This is how it's going to end?! (The car continues to spin and we are backwards then sideways again and forward briefly, then sideways...at this point I don't know if the car did two full spins or just the one...It happened so quick and my mind was in dis-belief) I'm not ready to die! I start saying "Oh my gosh!" "Oh my gosh!" over and over out loud. (then we start heading for the guardrail in the median that separates the two freeways, I believe at this point I had the brake pressed down all the way hard. I figured that if I didn't have control anyway, I didn't want to be going fast without control, and I just didn't know what else to do. We headed for the guardrail and we were still going pretty fast. I braced myself for the shock.) I need to be unhurt through this so I can help Christy and Bryce. Why doesn't the car seem to be slowing, I've been pushing on the brake for like 3 seconds now!!!! (We smash into the guardrail and that bounces us off of it and slows us down a bit, but we keep spinning in the grass and end up facing mostly forward just touching the road again.) I keep saying "Oh my gosh!" and have a death grip on the steering wheel. Christy is saying "It's okay" "It's okay", which was actually very re-assuring. I am shaking uncontrollably at this point and we are in shock at what just happened. A semi or a truck passes right by us on the freeway and doesn't slow. They have no idea what just happened!

Christy looks in the back and says, "Oh no Bryce!" or something to that effect. He was in his car seat but had tipped over and was in the middle of the seat sideways, still sleeping! The car seat wasn't buckled in place! I quickly back the car into the median to get us off the freeway. We calm down a bit, and I get out of the car to assess the damage. The front half of our bumper is missing, we see it sticking out of the guardrail about 60 feet back. It is starting to rain pretty hard again. I then dropped to my knee to offer a quick prayer of thanks to Heavenly Father. After about 20 or more minutes getting calmed down we head off again.

We don't know when this life will end for us. While driving afterward I kept thinking of the scripture that this life is the time to prepare to meet God. I would still be the same spirit person I am now, I would have the same desires I do now, the same thoughts I do now. I know those aren't always very Godly, are they mostly Godly, 50% Godly, less?! I know I have work to do. I don't want death to take me unprepared, yet how was I to know that I would have a close call that night? Life is definitely short and precious. We sang the hymn today in church "More holiness give me" and the verse "more sorrow for sin" stayed with me. Am I so calloused with the way I am living that I don't even think of some of the things I do as "sin?" And furthermore, now that I've had such an experience, will I do anything about it or brush it off as over and keep living my life the same way, saying that we are well, we got "lucky". Or will I give God the credit due and make a change?

Tour de Olney

Biking has become a huge thing in our ward of late. Probably due to rising gas costs, more people have been purchasing road bikes to commute to work and have picked up riding for fun on the weekends. Also our ward had a 180 miler over a three day period where the young men biked the C&O canal route here in Maryland. That was about a month ago. I loaned my mountain bike to a friend who was a young men's leader and he did the trip.

I have never owned a road bike or even ever ridden on one. I've always grown up having a mountain bike. The road bikes had always seemed kinda femme to me growing up, with their thin tires and bent handle bars that looked like an old goats horns that curled around. They didn't seem very sturdy. I didn't understand how one could hold onto the handle bars without crashing.

We were playing basketball the other night and a friend who had recently taken up road biking asked me if I'd like to join him and 4 other guys on a 100 mile race on Saturday the 6th. I gave it some serious thought, but after talking to my wife she talked some sense into me and made me realize that I didn't have to do the race (there was an entry fee of like $35) right at first and I should just go riding with the guys some weekend to see how I liked it. It's kind of ironic that she is so logical about some things and talks some sense into me, and other times I am the logical one and I try to talk some sense into her (like her freecylce addiction! Wait, I can't talk any sense into her about that. I will give it to her though, we have got some pretty nifty things through freecycle)

Anyhow, another guy Craig, in the ward about my age also owned a mountain bike. We were both pretty fit guys (or so I'd like to believe), and when the same friend invited me to go riding with them on Labor day, a mere 30 mile "joy" ride, I accepted and told Craig. We both wanted to see how we would fair with the roadsters. We were to leave at 6:15 the next morning for a 30 mile bike ride, and we had an hour and a half to do it.

I couldn't sleep well that night, I kept dreaming about biking and if I could keep up with the road bikers on my mt. bike. I got up at 5:30 the next morning, at a huge breakfast so I would have energy, and I was out the door riding my bike 3.3 miles in the dark to the rendezvous point. When I got there, only 2 other guys were there, with their road bike attire (spandex), and were surprised to see me there (shorts and a t-shirt) without a road bike.

We'll Craig showed with his mt. bike so it was us two tagging along with the 4 roadsters. We kept up fine for the first 10 minutes. But we both realized we had bitten off more than we could chew when we were pedalling hard on the downhills only to keep up with the roadsters who were just coasting. Then we hit our first big hill.

I felt like I was in high school track again, me giving it my all while running only to be way behind the other guys. I was pedalling as hard and as fast as I could only to see them reach the top of the hill and I was only half-way up. Craig was right behind me. My legs felt like rubber. I wanted to stand and use my standing momentum to pedal, but I didn't even have the strength to stand. I was so winded. I stopped and got off my bike to finish walking it up the hill. The roadsters where long gone and had left Craig and I in their dust.

We trekked on for a while longer. To rub salt in our wounds we came to another hill only to be passed by an older overweight man on a road bike. We came to a T in the road and had two choices. Turn left and try to find the 4 guys in our group, or turn right and head on home. We chose the right and pedalled home with that bitter taste in the mouth that comes not from being worn out, but from having just swallowed ones pride.