Could A Day Be Any More Stressful?

Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.
Kerri Russell (American actor)

Getting to Denver last Wednesday was more stressful than flying in the B-17 the next day. My drive started out normal until about ten miles outside of town when a Ring-necked Pheasant slammed into the windshield just above my face with a loud thunk and then slid up and over the top of the car disappearing almost as fast as it had appeared. It was so unexpected I screamed. I was also worried because the windshield is cracked on the passenger side and I was afraid that the force of a two pound bird would shatter the glass. This did not happen but I am sure the crack is now longer.

One hour later I was cruising along an almost empty Colorado highway with nothing behind me and one car about half a mile in front of me. All of a sudden that car's brake lights glowed bright red and the car stopped. Two Pronghorn Antelope started to cross in front of the car. One made it all the way over to the other side of the highway but the other spooked half way across the road and turned and leaped back over the barbed wire fence enclosing a large field of green wheat. Once both antelope were off the road the driver of the stopped car stepped on the gas and quickly speed off.

By this time I was a quarter of a mile away from the antelope and was watching the one who had made it across the highway very closely. Something about him was making me wary. He stood there staring at the other antelope who stood in the field staring back at him. The one in the field was calm but the one by the road seemed to be very agitated. I took my foot of the gas petal and started slowing down. By this time I was about fifty feet away from them when the one by the road suddenly bolted out in front of me. I slammed on the brakes as he raced across and leaped the barbed wire fence. That's when I understood what was going on. This was a mother and her almost full grown baby. The one who had made it across the road, the baby, had panicked when he got separated from his mother and his only thought was to get back to her as quickly as possible.

At this point I should have pulled the car over and taken a breather but I kept driving. Both incidents had shaken me up but I was just to stubborn to stop, I had to get to Denver. The next hour of driving was uneventful until I passed a semi on a hill and forgot to ease up on the gas petal. I zoomed down the other side into the speed gun of the Adams County deputy sheriff who was sitting in his patrol car just around a bend in the road. He was very understanding as I explained to him why I happened to be speeding telling me I was the third person from Kansas he had stopped and that the trouble with long distance driving is that people tend to loose lose focus. I agreed and signed the speeding ticket on the small clipboard he handed me. He then told me that he was pretty sure there wasn't another traffic cop between him and Denver but to make sure I didn't loose lose focus again.

Nothing happened from that point on and I made it to my niece's home without any more major trouble but I had, I realized, lost my traffic mojo. Driving for me is usually effortless experience with my car smoothly traveling along, never stuck behind big trucks, always moving to another lane just before the lane I left starts backing up because of some fool making a left turn where they shouldn't, and getting to traffic lights just as they are turning yellow. Wednesday, that wasn't happening. I got stuck behind a big truck, I got stuck behind a fool turning where he shouldn't have been turning, and I hit every red light possible.

When I reached my niece's apartment I parked in front of her building at one of the parking meters that line the block. Mine was the only car at a meter as there is a building parking lot and un-metered parking on the other side of the street. Since I was only stopping to pick up my niece, I wasn't planning on putting any money in the meter. I got out of the car and took a step toward her building, hesitated, and then walked toward the meter and dropped a quarter into it. I then walked across the street. When I reached the building door I looked back toward the street and saw a parking enforcement car slowing down to look at the meter I had parked in front of and to chalk my left back tire. I don't know where the enforcement officer had been watching me from but he/she sure had been waiting for me and I am sure he/she was hoping that he/she had just picked up an easy citation.

That is when I decided I was done driving and asked my niece to be my designated driver for the rest of the day. She was happy to oblige. I was hoping all that had happened wasn't an indication of what my birthday was going to be like the next day. As it turned out, it wasn't.