Well it's been quite an absence from the interwebs for me, but I'm glad to be back.
In fact, with the last couple of months I've had, I'm happy just to be typing away, warm and safe. Winter's grasp is collapsing all around us and the once mammoth snow drifts have been weathered down to dirty wet white humps. It's not yet sixty and sunny, but we're drifting more toward pleasant and farther away from the harsh.
But this second winter (arguably worse than my first winter) has left one indelible mark as it travels into memory.
So here is the scene. Daryl (my coworker and friend) and I are frequent travelers on a certain I-195, the tiny artery that connects Pullman to Spokane and therefore, the outside world. The Pullman Highway, as it's also known, is a winding strip of largely two lane, undivided highway that weaves through the wheat fields and towns of the Palouse. For those that have never been there, it's a place that manages to be eerily beautiful with no trees. In the fall and summer it's bare brown hills rolling over and over each other to the horizon. In the spring, it's the runty stalks of wheat breaking through forming a green haze. In the winter, it's nothing but white on white as the hills fold in and out of the skyline and frozen mist.
It's a pretty stretch of road, but not the best maintained, though I'm sure the annual take from pulling over idiotic college kids speeding is more than enough to feed the asphalt appetites of several byways. In the winter, the road is too long to be routinely serviced by deicing trucks and plows and instead the convoys of trucks work in sections: Colfax to Pullman, Rosalia to Spokane, Steptoe to Spangle, etc. Sometimes it's possible to have beautiful stretch of road lead into horrible conditions immediately depending on how the wind and mist settles in.
The point of this preamble being, the road is beautiful and dangerous, and most often times in the winter, it is both. We've had a few close calls before, but we've always arrived in Pullman or Spokane ultimately unscathed, with nothing more than an elevated blood pressure and whitened knuckles. To further the jeopardy, we travel in a vehicle designed almost purposefully to be bad in slick conditions. The work van is bulky and top heavy, with poor winter tires and rear wheel drive. With sufficient weight over the rear wheels, it's manageable. With a lightened rear, it will lose the drive wheels at nearly any speed with any hint of ice or slush.
Daryl was driving, and I was feebly attempting to stay awake in the passenger seat at about 7:00 in the morning as we left Spokane on 3/10. The weather had gotten warmer and rained a few weeks prior, but this Tuesday was in the middle of a nasty cold snap. We had our personal gear packed along with our work gear which included an industrial strength shopvac and generator. The day started normally, and it was still dark while we sipped our cheap coffee and made our way to WSU.
Approximately twenty minutes later the van was on its side after making a full rotational roll and a half turn lengthwise. Daryl was banging on his crushed driver side door to try and climb out and I was crawling through the cargo bay attempting to force the rear door open to escape.
For those of you that have been involved in a violent event such as a car crash, you know that there are two big phases. Phase one is when the adrenaline is going. Phase two is when it shuts off.
Phase one for me was closed eyes, the feeling of spin like a carnival ride. Sounds of a ladder smashing into a canister vacuum, into the generator, into the side of the van, repeat. The smell of spilled coffee on my clothes, of grimy tools. The abrupt smell of cold winter wind running through a broken window. The smell of gasoline.
My accident wasn't much different than any other. Icy roads caused a loss of control of the vehicle, which caused a rollover accident as the van left the roadway and slid down the embankment. Daryl and I walked away from the accident. If you've never been in a major accident and you turn on the TV and the anchor says "...and the driver and passenger of the vehicle both walked away..." it feels like this:
Your eyes see a sideways van, which makes no sense. Your can feel all your fingers. You can move and walk and run. There is no pain. There are people running toward you. You wave your hands, you don't remember if you yell. Your brain says: holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit....
In truth, the most traumatizing event took place well after the accident on that same day at the junkyard where our work van was laid to rest. In Phase Two, you begin to make sense of what the sounds and smells meant. And when you see how the van was crushed and smashed and broken, you begin to see yourself inside and you understand how violent the world is. You understand how unfortunate a relatively tiny patch of ice can be, how randomly it clings to some parts of road and not others. You understand what tiny forces can cascade into violent events. You understand how quickly and easily control can be taken from you.
You also see how fortunate you can be. In our case, there were no cars in the opposing lane that we crossed on our trip into a farmer's field. There was no precipice off the side, there was no sudden impact. All of the forces we felt were spread out over time. The spinning the rolling was as soft was we could make it, driving across hard asphalt and frozen ground to rest in a hollow of mud and snow.
I see how Daryl made a series of very good decisions in a short time, to steer into the first slide and attempt to steer back out of the second. He did not jam on the brake or the accelerator, did not fight the skid but instead tried to coax the van back on the road. Because of these decisions, we did not slide or flip on the road, potentially being struck by other vehicles. After the van came to a rest, he was able to force his door open, as gas fumes leaked from the overturned generator's carburetor.
So considering all the fortune and misfortune that occurred in one day, I'm sitting here typing away just like normal. All of our gear and our personal desktop computers all survived the accident. Daryl and I were largely uninjured, in fact the only visual indication that either one of us had been in a crash was an approx 2mm cut on my finger from broken glass. That's it. The only lasting issue after the crash, is the death of our work van. Instead, Daryl and I travel to work in his Hyundai Elantra, which has considerably less cargo space. But we make do.
So here it is, back to normal. And you know what, spring is here! I've never been happier for a new season.
P.S. Buckle Up!
