Cars Can't Fly

In my travels I have had the joy of going to Yosemite National Park several times. I have been camping there, hiking and skiing near the park. This particular post is about one such skiing trip. It began super early in the morning. Lemoore, CA. is about a 9-10 hour drive to Fallon, NV. This is near Lake Tahoe. If you didn’t know Tahoe was home to some Olympics events many years ago, and is some of the best skiing country I have ever been to. We left early so we could get to the house we (Daniel, Amanda and I) could get to Fallon before it got very late. We were making good time, when my GPS made a detour suggestion to save almost 3 hours. After consulting my fellow riders we decided to take the detour and save some time, added bonus the route would take us through Yosemite.

It is beautiful at the park in Ski season, snow is everywhere, the rivers are frozen in wonderful sculptures and I am pretty sure this is where God spend the Christmas season. The route took us right by the main camping grounds, and then abruptly took us left, which means UP the mountain. Snow getting deeper and deeper as the above picture will show, in some areas it was higher than my poor Hyundai Accent. We drove onward and upward, and the sky began to change color. It went from a blue day to clouds; we were now in the clouds. And in another 20 minutes the road ended. Just stopped, the plow was going and it stopped, a sign read road close due to snow. Not wanting to point out the obvious I had to laugh.

So we turned around and our 3 hour saving detour would cost us almost 6. I had been driving since 4am; it was now almost 2pm. So I was ready for a break. I asked if Amanda or Daniel had ever driven in snow before. Amanda answered she had not, and did not feel comfortable driving yet. Daniel said he had in Georgia all the time.

I should have known when he said in Georgia that something was wrong. But I didn’t stop to think. Daniel took the wheel and I laid down in the back seat. We were going down the mountain, and in the back seat I was listening to my iPod while watching the trees covered in snow pass by. I didn’t have a care in the world, other than once I sat up to tell Daniel he would have to drive slower due to the fact I had no chains.

Life was happy as my playlist finished and I heard Amanda yell. "Slow down the car Daniel, you’re going to crash us" this caused me to take my headphones off. I began to sit up as I felt the car slide sideways, and the Driver and front passenger begin to scream. The car snapped back the right way and drove right into a snow bank, which ended up being about a 5 foot drop off. We flew; I floated, in my car. But as we all know, cars can’t fly. And in short order we slammed into the snow bank 5ft below the road. Slid a ways and came to a stop at an angle that can only be described as not good.

We piled out of the car because it was sitting and slowly sliding towards an even bigger drop (150-200 ft) and didn’t want to be around for that drop. Amanda scrambled to the top of the bank back to the road me after her and Daniel behind us. We sat in silence for about 3 minutes before anyone spoke a word.

Daniel spoke first. "I will pay for a tow truck..." I think that set something off in Amanda’s head, because she began to mercilessly beat Daniel, and to be fair, I wasn’t in any rush to stop her. He was lucky though because in less than 5 minutes a tow truck heading back down the mountain passed us towed the car out and Daniel paid for the tow. We were back on our way, I in the driver spot and oddly enough the only problem with my car after its flight was the alignment was corrected. Lucky Daniel.

The moral of this post is, don’t fly in cars. To this day I am positive if Amanda was to run into Daniel and someone brought up the fact of a flying Accent she would still punch him for good measure. It was a bonding experience, which I would forgo if given the chance to relive.

Hope today’s a good one,

austininva