Deer in the Headlights

I narrowly escaped two car crashes while I was here already. Even more if you count the journey here.

On Sunday morning I played hockey with Chas and the older guys at the Delcastle park in Delaware. Chas drove from his house and back to save some gas for us. On the way back we were coming up on 202 and not sure which direction to go, and we went straight, and saw some signs from 202 in front of us. There was a hill you went down before you got on to 202 and it crossed another road, and there was a red light in front of us at the time. I figured Chas saw it so I just kept going, but as he got closer, he wasn't slowing down. "Red light... red light!!" I didn't quite scream but I was pretty freaked out, because if anyone HAD been coming through, probably one of us would have been done. Fortunately there were no cars.

The night before I was going to visit Rachel at her play at Delaware County Christian School. We got there in the middle of the 4 hour play and there wasn't any way we could see her till the last scene, so Michelle and I decided to go and tell her dad to tell her we stopped by. We promised ourselves we'd visit her before break was over. I took her to Corey's house on the way back because he was babysitting his little brother, and we took Smithbridge past the light on Kirk because we forgot where we were. As I was going somewhere a little past the entrance to Bobby's neighborhood, I was talking to Michelle about something, and I saw something in my headlights. After a moment of thinking, I realized it was a deer poking its head out of the woods. "I should probably stop," I thought. Doot doo doo...... yeah, I should really probably stop. So once my brain got down to my foot, I put on the brake. There was no way I'd be able to stop before that deer. And to make it worse, there was a car coming in the opposite direction that would almost definitely hit me if I swerved, or if I hit the deer. Thank god, it retreated back into the woods before I got to it.

The deer-in-the-headlights expression is totally real, if you've never seen it before.

Peace out.

Black Bronco

The night I came home and went to the GV game against Neshimany [we lost], we went to Abby's afterward, and I think seven girls were sleeping over. I was also there because I didn't have to be home until I felt like it. We decided to go to Cossart Road instead of a diner, after the fire would die out. It never quite died out, but we got impatient and went anyway. I went with Chloe, Trisha, and Molly. Abby, Sarah, Hannah, and Kacey were in the other car.

We drove there and pointed out the mansion, the true guard tower, and the other strange tower. When we got on the road, I was in the front, Sarah was driving the car behind me. I think sometime shortly after we passed over the little bridge, I saw a car coming in the opposite direction. One other car had passed us before, I believe. I think that one was a sedan of some sort. Whenever you're on the road, though, you try to see what kind of car it is to see if it's a black Bronco or red pick-up or whatever else the stories had said. As it turned out, the second car was actually a black Bronco. Creepy!

So we drove down the road at like 25mph, pointing out the leaning trees and the skull tree and the driveway that leads up to the "guard house." I checked out the driveways on my way to make sure there were no cars waiting. It was after midnight and I was a little more on-edge than I usually was. When we got to the end of the road, Sarah was still behind me. We decided to turn around and go back down the road. When we did, I looked to see Sarah, and saw that there was a black Bronco right behind her. Super creepy! However, part of the myth is that you can't see the face of the driver. I could clearly see his face - he was white, about my age, maybe in high school, and wearing an orange winter hat, pulled down over his ears.

They actually turned around and followed myself and Sarah on the way back. I kept my speed at about 25mph. Apparently the Bronco waited at the turn around, turned off its lights, sped back up to Sarah, and turned on its brights right on her tail a bit later, freaking them out. Hannah said she didn't even see them before they put their brights on, and she was looking right behind them.

Chloe called Abby at some point, and Sarah was crying. The car was still right behind them, apparently right on their tail. I could see two pairs of headlights in my rear-view mirror. We kept going at about 25mph all the way back - the road is too dangerous for anything else - and got to the stop sign at Rt 100. We didn't want to stop because we didn't know about the safety of the car behind us for sure (I was actually a tiny bit concerned), so I rolled through it, and Sarah followed.

The Dresden Dolls were playing quietly, and right as we were turning, we heard some sort of screeching sound, or maybe a faint scream, that sounded like it came from outside. We wondered what it was - I thought about turning the music off in the middle of it, but decided it was probably just the car or something like that. But the others asked what that was, and said it sounded like someone, maybe a baby, screaming right outside the window.

We called the other car and asked them if they heard anything, and to our surprise, they confirmed. So it wasn't something just in the car, and it wasn't something just in the music that was playing. That freaked us out a little bit.

Thankfully the Bronco turned left as we turned right, probably to go back and freak out more teenagers. We still don't know what that sound was.

We were glad that the newbies actually had a good first Cossart Rd experience. I mean, it was almost definitely kids from local schools just messing around, but we DID get "chased" by a black Bronco on Cossart Road.

Peace out.

---

I saw her earlier and that her eyes were red, and I thought maybe there was something wrong, but I didn't say anything because I thought it was more likely that it was from being out in the cold for so long. A few moments later when I saw her, she was, I think, crying openly and being hugged very closely by one of her friends. I didn't know what happened, but I pretty much knew, and I was sad for her.

I walked away and minutes later was somewhere near her again, organizing things for later, and I saw her with red eyes again, and being hugged by friends. I don't think I actually had even been told what was wrong at that point. I was wearing my big, fuzzy, itchy jacket from some name brand store (I forget which one. AE?) that people seem to hate to hug me in. So I took it off and put it on the chair next to me, and took off my pink mittens, and said her name and hugged her for a while. I told her that I took off my stupid fuzzy jacket just to hug her to try to make her laugh, but I think that actually made her cry harder, and I was worried I screwed something up. I asked her where she would be that night, because I wanted to be there for her and for her to be with friends. Partially that was because I thought it was what she'd want, and partially it was because I had no idea what else might help.

And though it was nothing in comparison, my heart broke a little bit for her under the light of what happened, the beauty and the tragedy, the gravity of the hour.

[and if this kills you, tell me to get rid of it, and i'm sorry]

Peace out.

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.