Accidents Will Happen

This past week has gone by in a flash, I’ve been playing catch-up with work that was on hold while I was gone for the TNNA Summer Trade Show in Indianapolis, IN.  I knew I was on the schedule for jury duty the following week, so was trying to get as much done as possible before being busy with that.

Of course, Mother Nature, decided to throw her own particular twist into things and we got a serious amount of snow that fell for the past 24+ hours. I woke up this morning to over a foot of snow.  We had just gotten the snow tires off the car last week (which makes me superstitious about doing that too early in the season).

Usually when storms like this come thru I hunker down and don’t budge off the mountain until the warm weather returns to melt it all off the roads. Generally that only takes a day or so. With needing to report for jury duty, I did not have that option this morning. So I bravely ventured out to head down the mountain to the Boulder County Courthouse. Unfortunately it didn’t take long to realize this was not going to go well.

Less than 2 miles from my house I slid downhill sideways and into the guard rail.  There is nothing more frightening than the vehicle you think you control suddenly going in an unwanted direction, particularly when that unwanted direction is toward a fairly steep drop off. Guard rails look incredibly flimsy in that moment. Very glad the guard rail was there and that no one was coming up the hill from the opposite direction before my car was stopped by the guard rail.

I ended up rather abruptly coming to rest parallel to the guard rail, concluding the journey with my forehead hitting the driver’s side window. Sat there a bit dazed for a moment, then decided to see if I could pull away from the edge of the road. I was stuck pretty firmly in the snow bank.

A kind soul coming up the hill offered to give me a tow out. He said he would get turned around and come back so he was facing the right way to tow me. Minutes ticked by and he didn’t return. So I put into practice my hours of driving experience and managed to rock my car out and back onto the roadway. I drove just far enough to safely get out and inspect the damage to the driver’s side wheel well. Not horrible but not great either.

I decided I would prefer to pay a fine for missing jury duty, rather than attempt to drive the remaining 20+ miles to town on roads that slick. So I headed very slowly and carefully back up the hill to my home. On the way I saw my would-be-rescuer. He was stuck in the ditch and another neighbor was getting ready to tow him out. We had a chuckle and I headed the rest of the way home, where I got stuck at the bottom of my driveway.

And that is why I wear snow-boots in May. Trudged up the hill to the house and told my boys they weren’t going to school today. Called the school to let them know the boys wouldn’t be there and then sent an email to the Jury Commissioner about my accident. So I’m now rescheduled for Jury Duty in July, when I should be completely safe from icy snow on the roadways.

Tomorrow I’ll share some of my TNNA adventures and show you the goodies I brought home with me.