Last night I had the worse driving experience of my life. I was driving down the mountain and it started raining so much there was ZERO and I mean ZERO visibility. It was like a fireman hitting the windshield directly with his hose. It was too dark to stop the car and there are no curbs so I would have risked hitting a tree if I stopped or falling thousands of feet to my death had I went too far. Plus since the curbs are so small (or non-existent) someone surely would have plowed me. There were 2 deaths on this road last night. The only choice was to follow the faint lights of the car in front of me and hope they did not drive off the mountain. I was in the middle of a line of about 15 cars all going about 40km. THEN, (ya it gets worse) the window fogs up and I just cannot find the heater controls. This is a road that turns radically left and right every few seconds so complete concentration is needed which made looking down to find the heater control impossible because one small slip and it is goodbye. So I am driving with one hand, blinded by the rain, and rubbing the window with the other hand for like 10 minutes. Finally I was able to get the heater on, and guess what, well, since I have never actually used the heater before it blew all this crap all over the windshield. I have no towels in the car so I am trying to take off my tshirt but that proved impossible. For a while I was looking only through a hole that was about 3 inches. Finally the rain lets up a little and in about 15 more minutes there was a pay booth where I could pull over to relax.
I like driving fast, I have jumped out of airplanes and bungee jumped so it is not like I do not like a little adrenalin. But I doubt I have been more stressed out while driving in all my life. I once hit black ice going 130km and went head first into a concrete wall destroying a Lincoln Continental. My reaction was to get out and kick the door while cursing the government. But last night there was a time I actually started shaking I was so stressed. I had to calm myself down by taking deep breaths because the hand shaking certainly was not helping anything.
I am absolutely never driving down that road again at night time. There is a more modern highway with curbs but it takes a little longer so that is what I will be using from now on at night. That amount of rain is unusual but I do see it about 2-3 times a year here.
I also own a bullet proof Toyota Land Cruiser. That thing is a tank. I probably would have risked pulling it over in complete darkness and maybe hitting a tree had I been driving it instead of the Porsche.
I had been up the mountain on a date with a girl 17 years younger than me and she is in medical school. I finally had just got the first kiss out of her! :dance: So it is all about BALANCE! Weird things happen to me all the time because I live here but the balance of it all makes it worth it!!
