This blog has nothing to do with my Bucket List for Year 77, but I have experienced two situations that I think people will enjoy reading about.
"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."
~Oscar Wilde
"Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else."
~Will Rogers
Harley and Trailer Unhitched From Car - A highlight of the year 2001 trip to Utah was when the trailer, with my Harley-Davidson motorcycle on board, came off of our Ford Explorer while we were traveling. I had put on a new trailer hitch ball the day before we left and, to explain the problem before I tell the full story, I guess I hadn't tightened the lock nut tight enough. In any event, we were cruising along at 70 mph on Interstate 15 about 25 miles south of Nephi, Utah, when we hit a bump and the tongue of the trailer bounced up off of the car (the ball was still in the tongue of the trailer, but the nut had come off) and the safety chain broke. All of a sudden the trailer, with my Harley on board, was going down the freeway at 70 mph attached to nothing! As I looked in the rear view mirror I could see the trailer bouncing around (but not looking out of control) and slowly dropping back from the car. I could also see a number of cars and an eighteen-wheeler behind us. I immediately visualized the trailer, and my Harley, tumbling and rolling down the freeway. But, to my surprise, it continued upright, and began a slow move to the left. This all happened in a few seconds. We had been driving in the right lane, so I quickly moved the car into the left lane and tapped the brakes. As I did this, the trailer, which was now going about 60 mph, pulled up along the right side of us. Heather, who had been napping in the back seat, sat up and looked out just as the Harley pulled up along side of us. I can't remember just what she said, but she was obviously confused about what was happening. The trailer continued trying to turn left, but now, with the Explorer in the way, it would hit the car (lightly) and straighten back up momentarily. Then it would begin going left, hit the car again, etc. In the meantime, two quick-thinking drivers immediately behind us had put on their hazard lights and slowed all the traffic I had seen in the rear view mirror. As the trailer slowed down, I slowed down, until we both came to a complete stop, taking up both lanes of the freeway. I pulled the Explorer off the freeway, ran back and picked up the tongue of the trailer (burning my hand on the red-hot trailer-ball bolt), and pulled the trailer off the freeway. Then the drivers that had slowed the traffic for us, sped up allowing the traffic to continue. One of the drivers pulled off a little beyond us and came running up to me shouting, “That was a G D miracle!” It was indeed! After getting my wits about me, Bonnie and Heather stayed with the Harley while I drove to Nephi and bought a new ball and safety chain, installed them and we were on our way again. When it was all over we had been delayed about an hour and everything was fine again. Bonnie asked what I was thinking when I saw the Harley pull along side of us. I said I was thinking, "My next Harley is going to be a red one.” I made a mental note that this all happened at mile marker 199, and I have thought about this incident many times since as we passed by this mile marker on our trips to Utah.
Lexus Escapes From the Garage – It was just a regular day in the summer of 2006 and I had been out in Monrovia running some errands. I came home (this is at the McKinley Place home), pulled the Lexus in the garage, got out of the car and walked into the house through the laundry room, hitting the button to close the garage door as I went in, all in the normal way and at the same pace as always. I had only been in the house for five or ten minutes when the phone rang and it was Kim P, our neighbor across the street. She said, “Do you always park your car on our neighbor’s front lawn?” I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and I asked her what she meant. She said, “Well, your Lexus is parked on our neighbor’s front lawn.” I knew that I had just pulled the car in the garage and closed the door, so I believed she had to be kidding or pulling a practical joke. She remained adamant that my car was on her neighbor’s front lawn, so finally I went back through the laundry room and looked into the garage. The main garage door was closed but my Lexus was not there! I couldn’t believe it! I should explain at this point that our driveway at the McKinley Place home slopes down from the garage to the street, but the garage floor seems perfectly level. I opened the garage door and looked across the street and there on Kim’s neighbor’s front lawn was my car! I grabbed my keys and ran across the street, started the car, drove out their driveway (the car had jumped the curb on the way on to their lawn), and back into our garage. Then we all gathered and tried to figure out how in the world this had happened. It’s only a few steps from getting out of the car to where I hit the button to close the garage door. How could the car get out of the garage (starting on a level floor) without hitting into a closing garage door on the way out? It should be noted that our garage door doesn’t include the light beam that stops it from closing if something passes in front of it, so it is possible for the car to go out the door while it is closing. And, of course, how could I be so lucky that the car didn’t run over one of the neighbor’s kids who were always playing there in the street? (I still have nightmares about this). I did discover the next day that the fuse that prevents you from taking the keys from the ignition without putting the transmission in park had blown. So this meant that I had probably left the transmission in neutral when I got out of the car. But it still doesn’t explain how it rolled out on what seems like a level floor (it must not be), and how it could have moved quickly enough to beat the garage door going down. It fit one of the lines I always remembered from the movie The King and I - “It’s a puzzlement!”
