What did you do to your truck today!

[magwakeenercew2jh]

Originally Posted by VWNate1

Do TO it ? .
Whew ~ for a moment or three I thought I was going to roll it down the embankment @ 65 MPH ~ that's very exciting but not much fun , BT , DT and have the scars to prove it .

Today *and* yesterday were about TV swaps. Our bedroom TV blew out. It gets used as a sleep-aid (mostly not by me, I'm a reader). So, off to the various Costco/Sears, etc.
There's a story in that, too. But suffice it to say that the related aspect is that the family room plasma is now for sale to help fund a motor build/rebuild. Enough on that.....Except:

As we were heading north on CA41, we stopped at a light waaaay out in the boonies north of Fresno about fifteen miles. The intersection of E/W 145 (that comes in from Madera and
heads over to Friant/Table Mountain) and N/S 41 that runs all the way from Paso Robles to the South Gate of Yosemite. We were stopped at a light...the last for twelve or so miles...
...on the last stretch toward home fifteen miles north of Fresno and nineteen miles south of home base in Coarsegold.

Hwy 41 and 145 are each two lane (one in each direction) 70 in a 55 mph ribbons. Sitting in pole position at the light headed north in my woman's Nissan SUV (TV and all that),
I reflected on how my wheels probably shouldn't be 2 feet over the white "stop here" line.

100 degrees outside. Air conditioning on full. Waiting for the light to change. New electronics in the car meant no jump out there's, even though I'm not so prone to do that these days, anyway.
I heard a modest "thump". The mind went, "huh?" The noise was on our left...Almost obviously starting from the east on 145 coming from the direction of Madera, and traveling west. Sliding at at
least sixty mph thru the now yellow to red light...at about a 30 degree angle, coming toward us and upright, was a four year old or so silver-gray Chevy Tahoe.

It's right rear quarter-panel was shedding plastic, glass, and metal....At least that was what was in its wake. Spreading across as if it were water poured on the ground. It trailed the Tahoe by milliseconds,
but looked like it was a shimmering, liquid wave. As it "flowed", I heard something like you hear the start of a heavy rainstorm. The noise stopped and was replaced by screeching of locked-up brakes.
The Tahoe's driver corrected to the left. He was off balance enough that his front driver's side dipped down and grabbed the pavement.

Then, as they aptly say, it was all suspended animation. Much slower than the thousands of tiny trash bullets and gravel seemed to be hitting our car.

He went over. Up, and to the left. I saw the bottom of the Tahoe. Then the front. Upside down and facing me as it now rolled through the last intersection. I say the drivers arm fluttering in the open
(or broken out) driver's side window. Strange, I remember a watch and an arm flopping inside a long-sleeved, checkered shirt.

As the Tahoe was finishing rolling on its right side for the second and last time, it was almost stabilized on its roof when a dog, a smaller cow-chasing type dog, was thrown out of the truck
from some opening, landed on his/her side and took off running to beat the band. Ten foot leash in tow.

The truck was on its roof, on the north-east corner of the intersection, but off the road. Very, very crashed. And very, very upside down.

The dog was running north in the middle of Highway 41 at what seemed like a sustained pace of 20 miles and hour. Running *from* the wreckage.

My woman was on the phone. First 911 call in. Stop motion. Then everyone started for the upside down SUV. Irene was giving thr CHP details,
as first responder people were bending and making whatever the first contact was with any human occupants of the Tahoe.

Enough folks there. We took off chasing the dog. As did about ten other cars. We traded positions, trying to herd the herding dog off of the road, lest one more
gory episode happen.

My flashers going to alert south-bound fast travellers coming from parts north, Hwy 41 turned into a winding clan of cars weaving around at 5-8 mph. The pace slowed.
The dog ran to the east through a barbed wire fence. Across range land and toward a large farm house. Safe for a time from the perils of cars. Heart pounding slowed down.
And sympathy for whatever was happening in our rearview mirror took over.

I couldn't find anything about the wreck *anywhere* last night. Not on the news, the web, the radio...nada.

So, we went back down today. We saw a small Japanese car parked along the road, just to the south of the intersection with a bashed in front drivers side and hood.

It's only a guess, but I will bet that the small Japanese car was at the park and ride at the south west corner of the intersection, tried to enter going east on 145 and was smacked...or *smacked* the Tahoe.
The Tahoe had to be whacked at no less than seventh mph...and no more than 100 feet from the signalled intersection, where he would have initially had the green...or the beginning of the yellow.

I hope everyone is okay. But I won't tempt fate and make the intelligent bet that there's at least one less soul walking on the face of the earth today than was earlier yesterday....And, I hope the dog's okay.

We'll probably never know.