Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Surreal

The current audit I am working on is a pretty far drive from home every day. I am out of the house before the crack of dawn, leaving between 6:15 and 6:30 am.

The only good side to leaving at this time of morning is the traffic is marginally less that I usually deal with and I get to witness a beautiful sunrise every morning. Or, at least until the sun gets high enough that it blinds me for part of the drive.

On the Ohio Turnpike, in between the I-77 exit and the Route 8 exit is a huge bridge. When I say huge, I really mean huge. It feels like it is a million miles in the air. I’m sure it’s not that high, but it is high! And, the road in this area is a few long meandering “S” curves. If it wasn’t for the ungodly hour of the morning, this would be a beautiful sight. But, I digress.

In the morning at this time of year, it is not uncommon for there to be low fog or clouds, at least until the sun comes up to burn them off. Driving east, you come out of a curve and see the beginning of the bridge and the part of the valley it spans. The valley looked like when you are in a plane over the clouds and all you see is the white puffy clouds below you but no land. That is exactly what this looked like! It was kind of awesome seeing the clouds coming up and around the bridge.

At least until I got on the bridge itself. That’s when I realized that the low cloud cover actually covered the road! Here I was breezing through one day last week at about 68 mph when suddenly it was all around me. I couldn’t see 20 feet in front of me. I slowed down immediately, hoping someone was going to pass me so I could just follow them! Unfortunately, everyone thought I knew what I was doing and they slowed down to match my speed and just stayed behind me. I definitely found out then just how easy it would be to drive off of a bridge.

Finally, reaching the other side of the bridge, the weather cleared and we were back up to speed. For a few minutes there, it was a surreal experience; or an episode of The Twilight Zone.

At least the drives to and from work are never ending sources of stories.

1 comment:

Mati said...

And we all know how much you love high places! Good to know you can keep your head in a scary situation. Don't you love it when reality just slaps you right in the face?