Just Simply Holly

I left the house today shortly after 11 to go spend some time with my best friend, then to run up to my sister in law’s to help her get to the store and do some shopping. I had originally planned on being gone MAYBE 5 hours, if that long. But as we all know, the best laid plans never happen like their supposed to! All went well with my best friend and I left her house and got to my sister in laws house by 1:30.

She got out of her electric chair and into her regular wheel chair and we headed out to the car only to find that her car was TOTALLY dead. It took about 30 minutes before her road service place got a vehicle out there to jump the car. The battery was so dead that they had to keep the cables on for almost half an hour before we finally got the car started. Long story short, her fog lights had somehow shorted out and came on and that’s what killed her battery.

We finally headed out, and got to the store only to have to make 3 trips around the parking lot until there was an available handicap spot for her to park in. We spent quite a while in the store, made a few other stops on the way back to her apartment and I was finally able to head home around 7 this evening.

If you thought things were a bit hairy up to now, just wait, it gets MUCH harrier!!! I decided to take the back way home from my sister in law’s because as I got to the express way I could see that traffic was INSANE and I just didn’t want to deal with it. All went well and I decided to stop and grab some dinner on the way home. Shortly after that is where things went REALLY REALLY bad!

Last night our area got some fairly major rain, some areas in the upwards of nearly 9 inches of rain in about 12 hours. So some areas are experiencing some pretty significant flooding right now. I live out in the sticks and 2 years ago last month we had some fairly significant flooding in the area. But hubby and I went out in his truck and drove through it, slowly, but we made it through it with no problems. So I’m in my van and when I see the sign that says “High Water, Road Closed” at the far north end of my road I think to my self that it can’t be any worse than it was in 2006 and as long as I take it easy I’ll be fine. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

As I headed down this near one mile stretch of road I took it slow and steady, making sure to stay in the middle of the road because I know that’s where the road is higher. What I didn’t take into account in comparing it to when we drove through it in 2006 was the fact that while we were in a truck, we were in a 4 wheel drive truck. I got about 1/4 of the way down the road and the water started getting higher than anything that I’ve ever driven through. I had the thought that I should back up and get out of there, but for some reason, I didn’t, a decision I would soon grow to regret!

At about the half way point the “wake” that my van was causing, for some reason, came out in front of my van rather than staying behind me and the water came within a few inches of coming up onto the hood of my van. I started getting freaked out, but knew that I really needed to keep my cool if I was going to pull this off. So I just forged ahead, knowing that I was half way. Things went down hill from there. Shortly after a wave came from around my van and the water went up over the hood by just a few inches. At that point, the van gave a “chug” like it wanted to stall. I knew that I had to do everything I could to prevent water from going into the intake and that at this point, putting the van in reverse to back out of it was no longer an option. I also knew that if I let up on the gas, the van would stall, bringing sure doom, so I just gave it a little more gas, just enough to get it past the “chugs” it was doing.

Things got even worse. I passed a slight clearing in the trees along both sides of the road and it was like a current, both trying to pull the van from the middle of the road and sending water well up over the hood, almost to the vents directly under the windshield. By this point I was TOAST, completely freaking out, shaking almost uncontrollably and hyperventilating to the point that my hands felt like they were covered with pins and needles. I just kept saying “Please God, just let me get through this, I have to drive to Baltimore and if I kill the van my husband will kill me”, over and over again. I stopped looking at the water and focused on the intersection that was a few hundred yards ahead of me and above water.

The van tried to stall 2 more times, each time I gave it just a little more gas, with the speedometer dropping to “0″ the last time. I was in tears, I KNEW I had totally messed up, I should have known better than drive down that road, no matter how familiar I was with it and no matter how sure I was I would make it through the water. While I’m not a “religious” person, I do have my own beliefs. Call it divine intervention from a higher power, REALLY good luck, or what ever you want, but the next thing I knew I was at the intersection, on dry ground, and my van was still running. There was a car there that was stalled as well as an ambulance and fire truck, so I parked my van, but did NOT turn it off. One of the firemen was my former neighbor and he could tell I was a wreck, so being the person he is, he started making fun of me to get me to laugh…LOL! He also pointed me in the ONLY direction from that intersection that didn’t have water, moved the ambulance so I could get through and told me that my van would be OK since it was still running.

I SWEAR I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever drive down a road that has standing water across it for the rest of my life! And to be honest, I’m not sure I could even ride in one going through it, even if I knew 100% for sure that it would make it through it fine. That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever gone through, even worse than the night that there was a shooting outside my bedroom window. It took me better than 2 hours just to stop shaking, and I feel like the worlds biggest idiot for doing what I did. I put so much in jeopardy for what? Nothing more than trying to save myself from having to turn around! I feel so fortunate that I didn’t ruin my van! There was NO WAY I’d have been able to get it fixed and it’s what we’re driving to take the kids to visit their sister. If I’d have ruined it from the water, there wouldn’t have been any other way for us to get them there!

And THAT was the stupidest thing I’ve EVER done!