Take Me Home, Country Roads.....But Watch Your Speed

One day last week I had the opportunity to go with my husband as he drove one of his delivery routes. I like to go on the Longview/Castle Rock run. It's a chance to relax, enjoy the scenery, and get lunch out. It had been a pleasant day with lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Longview. We were on the home stretch, which my husband tags "The Ridge Run." From LaCenter you take off up narrow, winding country roads; off the hurry hurry of Interstate 5. Supposedly.

A couple different times cars would swoop down on us as we were doing about 45-50 mpg (posted limit for most of the road is 45 except for the curves). The opportunities to pass are limited because of the curves, so they had to content themselves with riding our bumper until either they turned off, or there was a spot to pass.

There are several stops along this road, one called the View Market, the other Fargher Lake Grocery, before coming into the "booming" metropolis of Amboy, where there are several more delivery stops. Before we could get to Amboy, we came upon a small lineup of cars, stopped because of an apparent accident. We could see a tow truck ahead, and about 3-4 minutes into our wait, a fire truck came around us to get to the front of the lineup of cars, and to assist in the accident. As we watched and commented about what could have happened, Don could see that it looked like a vehicle had gone into a ditch. As we watched the tow truck prepare to drag it out, we realized it was a rollover accident, and it was a pickup truck. We wondered how it happened, if anyone was hurt--the usual stuff.

The tow truck driver applied it's cables, turned the pickup over and drug it out onto the road. Then he hooked it up for the tow back into town. Once he was out of the way, traffic began to move again, more slowly this time. As we passed the actual scene, a young couple stood along side of the road, looking rather dazed and stunned. Ahah! We said. This must be the people who were in the pickup. There were no other crunched vehicles along side the road, and from the number of cars ahead of us (about 8), the accident couldn't have happened too much before we got there. It must have been a case of too much speed and the driver lost control. Or, being more charitable, perhaps he dodged an animal and ended up rolling his truck.

At any rate, a sobering lesson for those of us caught up in this traffic backup. The couple appeared uninjured, for which they can be very thankful. Their pickup was pretty crunched, will probably be totaled.

There's a reason for lower speed on windy country roads. And when you come upon someone doing the speed limit on one of these roads, back off, slow down, and enjoy the ride.