ADVENTURES IN DRIVING

Caleb, son #2, finished up his finals and headed home from Lake State University last night. It’s spring break here in blizzard world! He had two guys riding with him. One had to be dropped off over in Alma which is rather northeast of us. The other had to be dropped in Holland which is 45 minutes straight west. It’s a lot of driving but they pay for his gas!

The weather was very bad last night. It had warmed up during the day and the roads had become quite slushy. Of course, when it got cold last night, all the water and slush turned to ice. Some of you know how that is. I had cautioned him to take his time and drive slowly.

Around 9:30 last night he called. The conversation went like this:
“Dad, I’m ten feet off the highway.”
“You’re what? Ten feet off the highway?”
“Yeah, ten feet off the highway.”
(Confused) “That’s nice. What are you doing ten feet off the highway?”
“I got sucked off the road.”
“You what?”
“I got sucked off the road.”
“So are you trying to tell my you lost control of the car and went off the highway?”
“Yeah. What am I supposed to do?”
“Are you all ok?”
“Yeah”
“Is the car ok?”
“I think so.”
“Do you want me to come up and get you?”
“No. I’m 21 years old and I’ve never spun out on the highway before and I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m 53 years old and I haven’t spun out on the highway before.”
“One of the guys has a AAA card.”
“OK. Call AAA. If they won’t help you then call information for the number for the state police and they’ll help you.”
“OK. I’ll call you back.”

A half hour later he called. AAA wouldn’t send a wrecker until the cops were there. So Caleb called the cops but before he could hang up the phone the wrecker was there anyway. Caleb sat in the squad and chatted with the cop while the wrecker pulled out the car. No charge! Praise the Lord! All’s well.

He finally got home around 5:30 tonight. (Had to go straight to see the girlfriend!) I told him how glad I was he was home safely. I mentioned how nice it was that he didn’t have to pay a lot of money to get pulled out. Then he told me that he spun out off the highway a second time and went through the same process again. This time it cost him $60.

I asked him what he thought the problem was. He knew the roads were icy and that he would have to drive slowly. What happened? How could he spin out twice?

Caleb looked at me and said…

Are you ready? This is worth it! Wait for it now…

“Well, Dad, when I hit the ice I couldn’t get the CRUISE CONTROL OFF FAST ENOUGH!”

Amazing!

Good night!