Terrifying I tell ya...

OK I find the idea of driving in the rain at times terrifying! It goes back to a time in college when my beloved cousin was driving me back to my friend's house while I was on Spring Break. She had been elected by the family to share some disturbing news with me about my Grandma's cancer. It didn't look good for Grandma. The Cuz and I had sat in an underground parking garage at a mall and discussed this over Wendy's Frosties. Being that we are both "emotional" we cried and discussed the fun times at the lake while visiting Grandma in the summer. Before we knew it we had pulled it together enough to laugh at some things.

We leave the parking garage and realize it has begun to rain...hard. Very hard.

As we are traveling down the LBJ expressway we notice that the rain has let up a bit. The traffic starts to zoom around us even though we are doing a tad above speed limit.

Then it happened.

We started spinning and hydroplaned:
hy·dro·planed, hy·dro·plan·ing, hy·dro·planes

1. To drive or ride in a hydroplane.
2. 1. To skim along on the surface of the water.
   2. To be or go out of control by skimming along the surface of a wet road. Used of a motor vehicle.

Soon we stopped... abruptly. The back of this little S-10 pickup truck was planted firmly on top of the median divider. AND we are facing in the wrong direction. The front of the truck is slightly out into the incoming traffic. This can't be good. We are stuck.

After 20 minutes or so a 6 foot 8 inch (no joke) truck driver from Galveston Texas pulls over to help. He literally lifted the back of the truck off the concrete thing and placed it on the ground. He then backed up and slowly pulled out and blocked traffic so we could turned around and get to the next exit. He followed us. The Cuz almost wet her pants. She heads for a well lit hotel parking lot. He moves on.

She calls her husband and informs him of our location and tells him she, "is never driving again and we are going to go get a room in the hotel to live."

Did I mention she is a little emotional?

He comes to check out the truck and "talks her down". We finish the rest of the route (in his truck) and the insurance company calls hers "totaled". The next day they measured the distance and we had spun for almost 3/4 of a mile. We had not hit any of the other traffic on the road. This is a miracle!

So there it is. This is why I do not like driving in the rain. And I wasn't even driving.

And this does not even cover all of the other mishaps that occur when a cousin goes south to visit her. Something always happens. EVERY TIME. Maybe trying2hide will pick up the story from her adventures in Texas.