Winter driving from hell
We are just back from our skiing trip to northern Sweden, and the second leg of this trip was pure highway terror. Although the assigned speed limits are on average 90 km/h, I would guess that our average speed was around half that. We had been driving for but 5 minutes when the first relatively serious accident appeared: an 18 wheeler had rear ended a small family car. When I had stopped I saw in the rear view mirror a truck speeding against us, and he in the nick of time plowed out into the ditch to avoid hitting us.
He just made it.
After that, we had four eyes focused on the road ahead. The road that was visible, that is: each time a car passed in the opposite direction, there was five seconds of complete blindness. Some idiots were driving like crazy, putting all other lives on the road at risk. If I for but a split second let a tire leave the narrow semi plowed lanes between the snow piles, the car would wobble and pull toward the ditch or the oncoming traffic.
When we finally got home, our icy hill beckoned. I drove as fast as I dared, but we still did not make it. Ella and Kristina quickly got out of the car to avoid certain (slight exaggeration) death. After a while I got into my driving shoes to have full clutch control, to no avail. I slid backwards as soon as the foot was off the brake, and I started sliding backwards towards the cliff. I finally got the car to a standstill, after which I took my good time caressing her down to the bottom. Once there, I shook, scared to the core, for minutes.
Now I am regaining my composure. With some help from my favorite captain. His name is Morgan.
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