Adventures

So last week's adventure was just that I got promoted in the WoW guild I'm an officer in - I'm now the #2 person in the guild in terms of authority.  My job is basically administrative - make sure meetings happen, prod officers if they're not being officerial, and such.

This week's adventure was spinning my car off I-88 on the way home from work Tuesday night.  It was a little after 11 p.m., and it had been snowing since I left for work at 5 p.m., and it had been freezing rain when I left Wal-Mart at about 10:45.  The plows turn around at the Schenectady/Schoharie border, about the 103 mile marker.  So the road was pretty slushy.  I think I've only driven in that much snow once before.

Three or four miles past the plow turn around, on a downgrade, I got my wheels a little off, but not all the way to the rumble strip.  Getting back on the road started me sliding left - I was thinking, "Wait, why am I spinning?  I didn't over-correct!"  I don't think over-correcting or not would have mattered - it was pretty slick.  I don't recall braking, actually; I don't think I did much, if at all - I was going about 35 when I started sliding.  Trying to straighten out started me spinning to the right.  There was a reflecter pole with one of those little green pseudo-mile markers just before where I slid off; on the way towards the edge of the road, I was thinking, "Shit, I hope I don't hit that little green sign."  So I slid off the road, mostly sideways and still spinning slightly, and got one of those swoosh-waves of snow like skiiers make when they stop or turn sometimes.

The car ended up spinning about 225 degrees (I could see the vehicles coming down the hill towards me), and I was completely off the road, but not very far.  Given the stretch of I-88 that I drive, I was pretty lucky in where I slid off - there weren't any guide rails, trees, steep slopes, or rock outcrops; I basically just slid backward off the road at a 45 degree angle and stopped when my back bumper and tire hit the ice in the ditch at the bottom.  If there hadn't been 6-8" of snow on the ground off the road, I might not have even needed the tow to get back up on the road.  (Though I probably wouldn't have slid off in the first place if that were the case.)

I called Mark, and then AAA, and the State Police got there and put flares out while I was waiting for the tow truck to come pull me back up on the road.  The car is okay, though I think the tail pipe might have gotten bent upward slightly.  I got home about an hour and a half later than I usually do, though some of that was from stopping at Wal-Mart to get oil for the car on the way home.

So I had about 50 minutes sitting on the side of the road, and it occured to me that people who die instantly in car crashes probably aren't thinking about their families or God or any of that - their brains are still processing the accident in progress.  I was also thinking that maybe I should apply to that position that would mean I wouldn't be commuting 31 miles to work, 26 of them on hilly interstate that is only half well-maintained in bad weather.