Saturday, Sept. 30th - Welcome To Alaska!
This is a sad post.
I awoke to snow. Didn't expect it at all, since it was rather warm. In hindsight, this is the most dangerous snow: slick as snot. ABS won't help me if I get into an accident.
Welcome To Alaska! Border crossing was uneventful. Did I mention visibility = zero?
And then it happened. 25 miles into Alaska. The camper trailer ahead of me stopped rather suddenly, and I didn't have enough time to slow down. I plowed into him at about 35 mph. I had about 4 seconds to mutter "no no no no no no no" but it didn't matter. Trying to slow down on this snow is just impossible. Just before hitting the trailer I swerved to the right, hoping to avoid the hit. Then I saw the 20-foot drop. No, I'd rather hit the trailer than end upside down in the ditch. I reluctantly swerved back to the left. Crash. Belle & Sebastian kept singing when I finally stopped moving. Why didn't the airbag deploy? Got out, saw Barry (owner of the camper trailer) (he turned out to be a really nice guy. Stayed at his place that night. Alaskans are friendly people) walking towards me. "What happened?!" I ask, confused and angry. You're not supposed to slow down on these conditions. Never mind, the insurance companies will sort it out. Within 3 minutes we had created our own Alaskan roadblock. 2 minutes later a trooper shows up. He was on his way to another accident that had happened about a mile past us, near the border side. That one turned out to be worse, a flipped SUV in the ditch. 3 minutes pass and a tow truck shows up. What luck! The toothless guy was on his way to that accident, but agrees to tow my truck and trailer back to Anchorage when he's done. The ignition wasn't damaged, so I was able to straighten the truck out nearer to the shoulder. Collected the scattered pieces in one neat pile (with the help of another toothless VW bus owner), sighed heavily, and got in Barry's truck.
All's well that ends well, I guess.
2 comments:
you raise very good points, major. i complain about the guy in front of me braking because he didn't brake to avoid hitting anything. he simply stopped in the middle of the road, got out and started talking to the VW owner on the other side of the road. i didn't expect he would make a complete stop, and thus didn't hit my brakes until it was too late.
i didn't have much experience driving in this above freezing snow back then. i do now.
say, major, what brings you to my humble blog? where's the connection? matt c from ny?
Major is not nice. Major too aggressive. I say kick major out. Yes major has been kicked out. What a name; major. Try sergeant next time. Or colonel.
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