Holy Crap! I wasn’t certain we were going to survive, let alone make it through unscathed!
From our cabin in the mountains, we headed to Payson to meet friends for dinner. The two-lane mountain road is full of twists and turns and in places, sheer drop-offs. With the mountain on our left, and a drop-off on our right, we came around a curve and was met with headlights from several vehicles coming from the opposite direction. It looked like the second vehicle in line was drifting into my lane. It was then that I realized that the lead vehicle wasn’t moving and the other vehicle was trying to pass him.
I hit my horn and moved to the right onto the narrow shoulder between the road and a sheer drop, then quickly back onto the roadway to avoid hitting a woman standing in the dark on the shoulder.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I immediately had to brake hard and drive onto the shoulder again as there was another vehicle coming into my lane while trying to go around another stopped vehicle. It was much further in my lane than the previous vehicle was. To make matters even worse, behind it was a vehicle stopped on my side of the road, with its headlights facing me and one of its front tires on the edge of the drop-off.
I could feel the anti-lock brakes pulse hard as I desperately tried to stay on the shoulder and not drop over the edge. Narrowly missing that vehicle, I was now faced with a near-head-on collision with the vehicle stopped in my lane. Then, I realized there was enough room to move to left, go around the vehicle blocking my path and back into my lane without hitting other vehicles stopped in the oncoming direction. It was a good thing as I don’t think I could have stopped before hitting the vehicle blocking my path on that winding stretch of road!
I have no idea why one vehicle was stopped in my lane or why others had stopped, but it couldn’t have happened in a worse blind spot for vehicles traveling in the direction I was going. Since I didn’t hit anyone or anything, and there was no safe spot to pull over, I continued on as I wasn’t about to become part of the problem. I’m going to check the local newspaper next week when the next twice-weekly paper comes out next week.
I’ve had enough excitement to last for a while!
