We are losing daylight now at a rate of 6 or 7 minutes a day. The sun came up at 10:11 today, and it set at 3:06. By the time I got off work at 4:41pm, it was night. This is normal, and we are all used to it, except for the military people who are forced to deal with it and have to learn to deal with it very quickly.
Usually, I use my Psychic Barrier Radar to plot my route anywhere. Don't ask me how I do it, but if there is going to be a car broken down, or an accident, or a super slow road grader, or a double-wide trailer going 15 mph, I will somehow feel it. I check, then I choose the route.
Tonight I decided to take the freeway even though my Spidey Sense said that it was not a good idea.
So I'm cooking along,55mph nice and smooth, Balfa Brothers on the stereo, looking forward to getting home a little early. It's -7F. The bridges here are totally iced over but if you know how to drive it's not a problem. There was a car in front of me, and a big, black, extra-cab pickup in front of the car. I always leave lots of distance between my car and the car ahead, and this time, boy howdy, did that extra cushion of safety pay off.
A smaller car, let's say what we used to call a "compact" car, cut off the pickup dude and we were still on a bridge. He could have eased off the gas pedal and remained calm and he would have been fine. But he freaked, pumped the brakes, and started fishtailing. Then he jammed the brakes on full slam and started spinning, one circle, into the berm, bounce off, start another circle, rinse and repeat. He was all over the place across two of the three lanes.
And I was right there. And the truck's front end was coming right at me back from that bounce off the berm guardrail. I eased the car over just about six inches, and he missed me (or I missed him, whatever) by about a foot. Or so. He was still moving as I went by.
And then I was past it and I don't know what happened to the pickup after that. But I'm telling you, there was some pretty good heart pounding for a couple minutes going on in my chest as I drove away! But that didn't last long. That's just winter driving in the arctic. Nerves of steel, people, nerves of steel.
And Ole dog didn't even get jostled.
