… it rains concrete. Or something large and hard like that.
On my drive home Friday night I was on 101. I don’t like 101, but it’s a shorter distance than 280 and who cares about the lovely view on 280 late at night anyway, right? So in Palo Alto area, where there is a lot of construction (invisibly it seems: I’ve yet to see workers) there is suddenly this big block (hah, twice I typed “blog” instead of “block”!) of “something” that shoots across the road. I can’t swerve to avoid it as there is simply no time, so over it I go. I think, “Whew, I made it, but I’d better check the tires as I drive!” Then I hear what sounds to be a very noisy truck on the road.
NO. Not so. It’s my car.
I am near an exit so I drive off (after all, with the (invisible?) construction there is no shoulder) on San Antonio and still I see no shoulder on San Antonio. When I reach Charleston there’s a gas station, so I pull in.
Would you believe I don’t have one flat tire?! No. I have two. Completely. Flat. Tires.
Both are on the passenger side. Both are shot.
After calling Dan (thankfully he’s home from Seattle) I call CSAA and they say that a tow truck will be there within one hour. I can’t tell you how thankful I was that it actually appeared very shortly after my call. So did Dan, really. Or else time was standing still for me for a while. We have extended towing so it was taken all the way to our service center.
This isn’t going to be a cheap repair. The tires needed replacing of course, but so do the rims and the pressure valves, along with the oil pan.
But I know it could have been much worse.
•I didn’t swerve, lose control of the car, or hit anyone else.
•The huge block of whatever I hit didn’t damage the engine
•That same huge block didn’t go through my windshield
•I was in a fairly safe neighborhood when I pulled over
•Dan was home and on the road to get me immediately
•The towing service arrived quickly and towed the car without incident
So I am thankful. I think posting this on my usually “music only” Sunday is just fine … showing gratitude is a good thing, right?
I’m still deciding if I’ll drive 101 again, or stick to 280. Dan drove me yesterday so I didn’t have to come to any decision then.
