I judged movement at the Livermore show yesterday and got done at about 7pm. Driving straight home at that early hour should have been a breeze but there's something about I-5 that makes me sleepy ... rut roh! To combat this I routinely break my trip down into manageable chunks. In this case ... make it to the Benicia Bridge, make it to the 505 cut off, make it to Dunnigan, make it to Corning, then make the 45 minute slide into home base and bed. Well I made it through Dunnigan with zero problems thanks to distractions purchased at Taco Bell, but my eyelids were really heavy by the time I hit Williams. It got bad then. It got really bad. When it gets really bad I see giant trees growing over the freeway. Don't ask. I don't know what that is, it just is and it's my sign that it's time for me to pull over. I figured I'd ignore the trees over the freeway for the moment, try to perk up and make another 10 miles or so to the Corning exit where I'd catch a few zzzzzz's at the Flying J truck stop.
Well, I got perked up all right ... and it only took about 1.5 seconds.
There were two SUVs in the fast lane directly to my left and I was about 25 or so feet behind another SUV in the slow lane. Our SUV 4-pack was trucking along at about 75mph when suddenly, what looked like a big piece of retread tire, flew from the left front wheel of the SUV in front of me and started sliding rapidly toward the under-carriage of my truck.
Note: I was once hit by a hub cap that popped off a car in front of me on the freeway and it cost me $550 for a new CV boot. I was once hit by a piece of retread in the windshield and that cost me $300. Nothing is hitting me anymore!
So I'm geared up to swerve and I'm watching this sliding piece of retread approach my truck and doing the geometry to figure out how to best avoid it when I realize .................. the retread is furry !?!?!
And my thoughts rapid-fire like this ...
Why does it have fur? .... omg, it's an animal, he hit an animal! .... there's a huge dead animal hurtling towards my truck and he'll spatter everywere if I hit him ..... must avoid, must avoid! .... danger, danger! (Right then the "dead" animal rolls onto its' back) ... EEK! OMG! Holy Shit!!!!! It's a racoon and he ain't dead!!!
He's just been winged and, in fact, he's alert and looking right at me and doing the same geometry I'm doing! The action of him rolling to his back (to try to get on his feet?) has made him start to spin. Suddenly I feel like we've both been cast in a Hanna Barbara cartoon as he jets towards my under-carriage, flat on his back, paws to the night sky and spinning FAST. He magically passes right between my front tires and apparently made it through the rear tires in the same manner because I feel no "bumps" (thank goodness he and I are both good at geometry). I glance in the rear view but don't see him come out the other end. There were no cars immediately behind me so I'm thinking Risky Racoon (as I've decided to call him) made it ... and thanks to the adrenalin shot he gave me, so did I.
I checked the truck this morning just to be sure .... whew! ... and I would happily chalk this all up to "funny things that have happened to me, lol and ha-ha" except for the fact that immediately following Risky's narrow escape from my under-carriage, I had a creepy, cold, eerie, hair on the back of my neck standing up, goosebump feeling that death was right there and had just brushed us all.
1.5 seconds in which everything could have changed????
Or 1.5 seconds in which everything did change????
It wouldn't be the first time a racoon marked a milestone in my life ....
.
