Spin Out

There's a big hill somewhere down 322 coming East out of State College where you have to make a left as you're going up the incline. We left around 1:15 on Friday to get home, and by this point it was probably already 3:30 or so. We were all very frustrated, and knew that there was a good likelihood that things wouldn't get any better from here.

We were going up the hill - myself, Gina, and Dana - on the right side of the road, I believe. Then, a few cars in front of us, a dark-colored [green?] jeep spun out. All the cars in the right lane stopped, and I suppose it was in the middle of the road, because all the cars in the left lane stopped, too. Or maybe just no one wanted to take a chance. But so there we were, sitting on an incline in a half-inch of slush and ice on 322, with a spun out jeep in front of us.

There was a big flatbed truck in front of the jeep. It was going up the hill just fine, but then it slowed down. Then we saw that it was going backward and it's tail lights were on. I didn't know what was happening - for a few seconds, I was convinced that this truck was about to slide down 322 and make a multiple-car accident heap, leaving us stranded there for a number of hours, not moving forward at all. It was a frustrating thought. Thankfully, it turned out the truck stopped to help the jeep. I don't know how he saw it, but I guess somehow he caught an idea of what was going on.

Some people were getting frustrated in the line of cars up the hill. I remember looking back, and in my head, cars went on in both lanes as far as I could see. That's not saying much because it was gray, cloudy, and snowy, so you couldn't see very far, but I would say it was about three-quarters of a mile. I forget what we were listening to at the time. Some cars honked their horns, and we didn't understand what they thought it would accomplish. Then some cars pulled around us from behind, went back up to the right side of the road, and drove past the jeep and onward. I thought about doing it, and started for the left lane to get around the car in front of me, but then the jeep moved. I didn't think it would be safe.

I remember I slid out a little bit at some point when I was making that initial move. I was really really frustrated, and almost convinced myself that the minute I took my foot off the brake and put it back onto the accelerator, I would fall off the road into the ditch on the left. There was a large rock/mountain separating the east and west directions of the road.

The trucker slipped as he was helping the guy in the jeep. He was pushing the jeep from behind, but the jeep wasn't doing very well. Somehow they happened to make something magic happen, and the jeep made it up the tiny incline from the dipped left side of the road to the elevated right side. It got its wheels on the rumble strip and then went on its way, on the rumble strip. So I knew it was my turn to go.

I had told Gina I thought we would spin out. The trucker headed back for his cabin, and people started to move. I aimed immediately for the right. Even though my steering wheel was all the way to the right, we hardly went to the right. In fact, at first we did lose our traction a bit, and I remember Gina saying something to me, "God-- Jeff...!!" in a frustrated and somewhat angry voice to me, and I told her to shut up/not to talk, which was mean, because I was in a really foul mood, and very afraid we were about to land ourselves in a snow drift. I kept the wheel all the way to the right and went slowly, and eventually we caught a grip and made some progress to the right, and made it to the rumble strip. We drove on that for a while, but I was afraid driving on it for too long would destroy the car. Plus it was very annoying. So we drove on at about 25MPH for basically the rest of 322, and got home at 7:00PM or so.

Peace out.