All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

As I sipped my Thursday morning coffee I wondered what I would write about this week.  Nothing had really stood out to me thus far, but I knew Jenni and I were headed into town for a luncheon at church that day and a trip to town is ALWAYS fodder for a good blog.

But we never made it to town, and that’s worthy of a story in itself.

Jenni and I participate in a group at church called ‘Forever 55’.  Our pastor likes to say it is the “youth group for older adults.” We get together each month for a catered lunch, some social time, and usually a speaker.  Our group leader had a medical procedure moved up on her this day so she had asked us to be in charge of meeting the caterer, setting up the room, leading the agenda, and introducing the speaker.  Several other friends volunteered to help so Jenni and I were pulling out of the driveway by 10:15 that morning to meet everyone.  I was quite proud of how far ahead of schedule we were!

About three-fourths of a mile into the drive, our plans changed.  From our house to the highway is about a mile of privately owned roads with the final quarter mile being quite steep and featuring a ninety-degree turn.  When I say “quite steep” I mean it--my mother-in-law was more comfortable riding on the floorboard than facing that incline.  As we cleared the final ridge before the steep hill (going DOWN for us) we saw an 18-wheeler truck at the bottom of the slope, practically jackknifed in the ninety-degree turn and blocking our exit. 

We stopped and waited, hoping he might be moving momentarily.  He didn’t.  I managed to reverse my course back up the hill and find a place to park before walking down to meet the driver and assess the situation.

The truck belonged to a moving company.  The driver told me he had made it around the ninety-degree turn but did not have enough power to then climb the steep road afterward.  His plan was to back down to the highway where he would offload onto a smaller truck and make multiple trips to complete the delivery.  Unfortunately, he got himself wedged in the sharp bend between the drop-off, a ditch, and trees.  I don’t think he had the experience (or confidence) to try any other maneuvers so he just stopped, called his boss, and then a tow truck.  Neither of those are phone calls I would have wanted to make.

At that moment we realized we were going to be late for our luncheon, but still optimistic we could make it.  (Ha!)  We began calling those who were helping with the luncheon and delegating our duties as well as messaging as many neighbors as we could to apprise them of the situation.  We drove back to the scene an hour later and nothing had changed—no tow truck, no way around.

In the end, the road didn’t open up again until about 4 PM or about five hours after the ordeal began.  And the moving company still had to carry someone’s furniture up the hill.  I’m sure they were thinking they don’t get paid enough for this day.

I was thankful it was all clear the next morning because I had a couple health-related deliveries to make.  I was taking a stool sample and a heart monitor to doctors in town.  

I just had to be sure to drop the correct one at the veterinarian.