Sunday, April 20, 2008

"By the Grace of God go I"

Yesterday, Saturday ,was an eventful day or you could say uneventful depending how you looked at it. I live in Oakville which is approximately and hour and 20 minutes to my daughter's home in Barrie. After Peter's art class at Sheridan and a quick lunch we were on our way by 1.40pm. We were looking forward to a visit with the grans before dinner and as it was a lovely day, maybe a walk to the park. I was going to pick up dessert and a plant or flowers for Courtney's new apartment.

We arrived at 8.40pm tired and just a bit put out but when you hear why, we are just thankful to be save and sound.
Forty minutes into the journey Peter felt the need of some caffeine and the hit of nicotine he enjoys from time to time during the day. We always stop at the first full service station and I just stayed in the car reading up on all the latest gossip in a magazine while Peter went for his coffee. The traffic had been moving very smoothly, the sun was shining and was getting quite warm. I think you know where this is going.

When Peter came out his comment was, "Lets just wait until the traffic moves again as there seems to a problem!!!. The traffic did not move again for another 6 hours.

Not knowing what the problem was, everyone was complaining . More and more people came off the highway and the parking lot was jammed. We were not going anywhere. I called Courtney with the news and in the next few hours the news trickled in courtesy of many cell phones that at the next cut-off a fatal accident had closed down all lanes in each direction.

It turned out that an elderly couple , driving wherever, minding their own business were hit by a flying tailgate off a dump truck and they were mercifully killed instantly.
When the news got out the atmosphere changed as hopefully we all gave a thought to the family of the elderly couple.

There was no way of turning around on that stretch of highway and no exit. A few hearty souls decided to try and cross the farmers field in their big gas guzzler SUV's. At least one was stuck in the mud. Peter reported it was two women and some kids. Hope they made it to the other side.

It was interesting to watch how people reacted to the situation that had been forced upon them. I have to say that I probably met more people and had conversations with strangers that at any time in a long while. I felt sorry for the pregnant women and those with toddlers as you can only keep them happy for so long. The fast-food concessions did a brisk business and did not run out of anything.

I never go out of the house with out a book and I managed to read a couple of chapters of a Peter Robinson book. Dozed for a bit and then shared a sandwich with Peter along with lots of coffee.
No one was suffering and as nothing could be done to change the situation most made the best of a bad situation.

We eventually arrived in Barrie to a very wired little boy who was waiting to see Granma and Grandad and we were happy to see both our grandsons.

This is a long story but I wanted to get it down.

Today I have been writing Body Perfect and have sent off to Liz my scribbles. Worked on my 1000 words for the workshop and now its time to sit out in the glorious sun and read some more Peter Robinson.

Hope the weather is good where you are.

Pam

3 comments:

rosemary said...

quite an adventure, to say the least eh? Glad you made it in one piece, on a down note, what if you had'nt stopped, you might have got caught up in the middle of it all!

Pam said...

Hi Rosemary,
Thanks for your comment. We were both very thankful that we did stop.

Pam

carolinemack said...

WOW! some day you must have had. It's funny how reactions change to a situation once you know what the problem is. I was stuck on a train once for a while and everybody was in a bad mood, which changed almost right away when we all heard that the reason was that some poor person had jumped in front of another train further up the track.
And the mood changed again when our train eventually slowly chugged past the plastic bags covering horrors when we eventually moved on. Just makes you think...
Glad you eventually got there in one piece.
Caroline

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