Around and around and around the car spun on black ice!

Barry shared a crazy story while we sipped coffee at 6:30 a.m.

I sipped mine with hazelnut creamer and he sipped  his black.

We burrowed under a large pink and brown comforter.

We told Early Morning Stories.

You know, the stories where you catch up with your Significant Other after a long hectic work week.  (OK, some of us have long hectic work weeks.  Others of us experience moments of calm in between busyness.)

I shared about–well, heck, I didn’t have much to share.

My Significant Other did have work-related stories.

This one was so interesting I am coming out of blogging seclusion (it’s been a long time since yesterday morning) to share with you.

A woman Barry interviews in a sports-related context was driving up to da Copper Country on Thursday.  As some of you long-time readers know, da Copper Country is da familiar name for da Keweenaw Peninsula.  The many old-time Finns who live here refer to it as “da Copper Country.”  After thirty-some years, so do we.

Da Copper Country. North of us. See Houghton and Hancock? That's where we eat out way too often.

She was driving on Highway M-26 between Hancock and Dollar Bay when suddenly her vehicle hit a patch of “black ice”.  (We all know the perils of black ice, right?  It’s a patch of dark ice the color of the pavement.  Thus you do not know you’re perhaps about to spin and circles and land in a ditch.)

Her car careened into a spin.  Around it spun!  Around it spun again!  Around it spun a third time!

If you’ve ever lost control of a vehicle and spun around in circles, it’s quite interesting how the mind works.  My mind, at least, becomes crystal clear.  Everything grows silent.  You spin in slow motion, aware of every circling nuance, even though you are moving faster than the speed of light.

Simultaneously, you are assessing your chances of dying.  You are silently praying–wordless, even–that no cars are approaching from Behind or In Front.  If they are approaching, you are hoping they will be able to slow their speed and stop without smashing into your crazily-circling-spinning-vehicle.

She spun around three times before the car momentarily righted itself and aimed for a snowy ditch.

That’s how most of these stories end.  The spinning car lands in the ditch and must now be towed.  One must dial a wrecker–if there is cell phone coverage form your particular snowy ditch–and wait, shivering, in shock, sweating, for the tow truck driver to arrive.

Yes, some of you have witnessed this ditch photo before. From a death-defying episode in the 1980's.

This woman’s car actually seemed to assess its situation and think.  It leaped completely over the ditch to land–yes, land–squarely in the middle of a 14-foot wide daily groomed hard-packed snowmobile trail running between Hancock and Dollar Bay.

She sat in the car, smack-dab in the middle of snowmobile trail, shaking.

She pondered the situation.

Fortunately, at that moment, she glanced in the rear-view mirror to discover four snowmobiles approaching.

What luck!  She would be saved and get to her meeting on time!

Here’s what happened.

Every snowmobiler simply drove past her, as if it was a commonplace occurence to discover a vehicle sitting in the middle of the snowmobile trail.  One, two, three, four snowmobiles zipped by, leaving her in their exhaust. (Perhaps they were visitors and too polite to ask why a car was on the snowmobile trail. . .)

She sighed heavily and opened the car door.

Try to keep on the pavement whenever possible...

Fortunately, another snowmobile soon approached.  This driver kindly turned off his machine and asked–“My goodness, woman, what ARE you doing in the middle of da snowmobile trail?”

(I made up his question, mind you, because the original storyteller, my coffee-drinking partner, is no longer here to supply the exact words.  Doesn’t it sound you like the question he might ask?  And isn’t it logical he might have a Finnish accent?)

“What am I to do?” our heroine asked.

The snowmobiler thought.

“I think it’s packed  hard enough to drive on,” he surmised.  “Why don’t you drive up there about a hundred yards and you’ll discover a driveway.  As soon as you reach da driveway, head back out to da road.”

Which our heroine did.  She reached her meeting in time.

She did call my husband later in the day with meeting results.

“How are you doing?” he asked politely, to start the conversation.

“I almost died!” she responded dramatically.

(I like her.  She sounds like me.  Yep, I would have said the same thing.  I mean, she could have died.  It probably felt like that.)

All’s well that ends well.  She survived.  She now has an exciting story to share about those darn snowmobilers who didn’t even stop to rescue her from the middle of a snowmobile trail.   Barry has a story to tell while sipping his black coffee.  And now Kathy has a blog to write, coming out of her seclusion after almost twenty-four hours away from the blog!  And you readers can tell YOUR significant others–or friends–as you’re sipping coffee tomorrow morning.

You gotta love the way stories travel.  Almost as exciting and nerve-wracking as the way vehicles sometimes spin out…

P.S.  So VERY glad she ended up safe!  That’s the best kind of story to share.