cherry | (no subject)

Yeah. So. Saskatchewan tried to kill me. Again.

I was heading in to work at the library for my mother, because she and dad were working a bingo for my sister. I was just puttering along, enjoying the sunset, slowing down because of the melt-freeze we had today, when out of the wind break at the side of the road came a flock of birds. Large, hulking birds. Backlit by the sun. Right at me.

So I swerved. Which, in retrospect, was a bad idea. What with the ice and the relative damage caused by birds. It's just ingrained into me to try not to hit things.

Where was I? Swerving. Right. So, I swerved. And quickly discovered that the ice was, in fact, sheet ice. Covering the entire road. And I tried steering into it. And I tried steering out of it. I avoided hitting the first ditch, though I kind of lost my back tires for a second. 360, almost hit the other ditch, back over to the other one sideways, then back over and down the embankment on the other side.

Luckily, the car's okay, just stuck in the snow in the ditch. If you ignore the skids in the snow, it looks almost like it was parked. I could still drive, but not enough to get up the momentum to get to an approach and back up onto the road. And ice. Luckily, a car was coming even as I was trying to pull out. The dear heart turned around and drove me into town, so I could open the library. Mom and dad are going to try and get the car out when they're done with bingo, then come and pick me up.

This is only the second time I've hit the ditch (most people I know are a lot higher, and they've hit animals) but it's the second time I've almost flipped and rolled. Either time, I know that if I'd touched the brakes, I would've been gone. If I'd tried to steer back up the ditch after leaving the road, I would have been gone. I wasn't even going too fast tonight. The ditches around here are just steep and deep and rough and sudden. There's no real shoulder, just a sudden drop.

And I'm going to go and take deep breaths now.