Mountain Scare

I never updated the blog to let you all know that I headed to PA with my husband, because his mother was admitted to the hospital and not doing very well. We packed and headed out of town in only about an hour on Saturday. Thankfully, Aunt Deb was back in town and already babysitting for a marriage conference we were attending at our church when we got the call to come. We headed home, threw some things in a suitcase and set out on the six hour drive to PA. All was well on the trip up, and Grandma is doing much better after strong IV antibiotics. Thankfully, they even pinpointed the root of the infection and have a plan to prevent it in the future; her immune system is still weak due to Chemo drugs. 

Our crises happened on our trip home in the mountains of West Virginia. We had on and off rain on the trip north and south and took the mountain drive to avoid the DC belt-way, as well as enjoy the pretty view. We were coming through a pass in West Virginia; it was a narrow two-lane highway, complete with a drop on my right (as a passenger) and a mountain on the left. It had been raining, but had recently stopped and the roads were still wet. Although we weren't speeding or didn't swerve, one minute we were just driving and the next minute the car was spinning. While it was all over probably in a few minutes, it seemed like an eternity and many things logged in my brain. I realized the second spin that the car was picking up speed and heading in the oncoming lane towards the mountain. I was actually praying to hit the mountain because it seemed like such a better scenario than going over the guard-rail on the cliff side of the mountain. In that few moments of complete out of control spinning, I really didn't think we were going to come out of it alive and my only thought was despair at leaving the children parent less. I remember thinking that this must be what happens that causes the little crosses you see along the roads where people die. The spinning ended when the front tire hit the small ditch about a foot from the rocks of the mountain and just stopped; I braced for the air-bag to hit me in the face and it didn't even go off. Within seconds, I realized there was a car coming straight for my door, but it swerved and went around. Before another car even came, JD got the car out of the ditch, across the street and down a bit to where there was pull-over room. We just sat there and then I sobbed; we both really didn't think we were going to live, much less walk away uninjured. We are feeling incredibly blessed today!