Black Ice

[caption id="attachment_637" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A photo Ben the photographer took."][/caption]

There is a certain time of the day that I must must must put on cozy clothes.   Any type of clothing with zippers will not do.  My body needs to breathe.  The time of day varies.  Sometimes I can make it until 8:30 pm.  Other days, the changeover happens at 3pm.

Well, one night back in February, I was driving home from my wonderful Tiara Coaching group in Chicago (created by the incomparable Betsy C. go to www.tiaracoaching.com for more info.)  As I left Chicago the temperature was a balmy 50 degrees and it was misting rain.   When I stopped to fill the car up, it felt much cooler than it had in Chicago.  After getting back into the vehicle, I decided to pull a Homer Simpson and unbutton my pants.  AAHHH much better.

As I continued driving along at 68 or 69 miles per hour, suddenly my front windshield started freezing up.  I

[caption id="attachment_747" align="alignright" width="225" caption="All bundled up for the Wisconsin cold."][/caption]

thought that was wierd and adjusted my windshield wipers and defrost settings.  Then I looked up and a truck had slidden off the road onto the embankment.  Then I saw several other trucks on the shoulder with their hazards on and a truck to my right that was trying to slow down and skidding at the same time.  I thougth Oh boy, this could be some ride.  As I began to slow down, my own car began to skid.  Fortunately, the truck and I did not skid into one another.  At that point I slowed the car way way down.  I saw another car and van that had just smashed into one another in the median.  I slowed way way down to about 12-19 mph.  It was surreal.  All of these trucks were just parked on the shoulder with their hazards on.  All of the cars were driving super super slow.  And the wierd thing was on the opposite side of the road, the cars were continuing to travel at a rapid pace, without any collisions.  Wierd.  I wondered if maybe this happened every night at midnight and I just had no clue b/c I was almost always at home asleep at that time.  Then we came to a complete standstill.  I wondered if the highway were actually closed.  We sat for maybe 10 minutes when the mostly trucks and my little hybrid began to move.  Finally, I saw that 4 cars had collided and had been moved to the shoulders and that was what had caused the standstill.  And I kept thinking that I had to make it through because my family was waiting for me at home.  And also because with my unzipped pants, I could not imagine the embarrassment of having someone have to pull me from my car in that state.  I don't think anyone would believe that the impact of a crash would cause your zipper to come undone.  Do you?  And I certainly couldn't remove both hands that were gripping the wheel for dear life to zip up my pants.

I think the thing that amazed me the most was that I did not feel all that scared.  I mean sure, my hands were white knuckling the steering wheel and my leg hurt from how tense it was on the gas pedal, but I wasn't as scared because I felt as if I were part of a community out there that night.  Me and all those

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truckers, we were in this together.  I was not alone.

I mean the thing that shocked me was how suddenly everything changed.  One minute I was driving listening to my book on tape and the next total mayhem.   It's so easy to get lulled into feeling like everything is going to stay the same when we know ultimately nothing will.  I made it home that night.  I was never more happy to crawl into my cozy flannel sheets and snuggle down for the rest of the night.