JESUS: Do you know him? Well, if I didn't know Him before; I sure as shit got to know him up close and personal on my trip north this summer. Driving blind for twenty minutes through the dead center of Vegas will do that to you. It didn't matter that I was pulling a fully loaded LQ trailer. The other traffic around me, whether compact car or semi-truck, was in the same white-knuckle predicament.
The most dreaded part of the trip to and from Arizona for me is always Vegas. Unless you hit it at 3:00AM on a Sunday...you can expect bumper to bumper traffic and death-defying lane changes; your brain frantically calculating the proper speed, trajectory and willingness of others to let you merge into the correct lane BEFORE you miss your one and only chance at the correct exit. I miss calculated once. I don't remember much after the initial sickening that overcame me; at once realizing I was being herded by a mob of faceless drivers toward an unknown and undesired exit not of my choosing. My only awareness of making it out of that particular episode of the Twilight Zone: The Sin City Version: I'm still here to blog about it.
I've pulled through Vegas enough times now that I'm fairly confident I won't miss an exit. You learn to take your time...go with the flow and become one with the blinker. This trip, so far...had been innocuous enough. Cloudy sky's and a few scattered showers made for a pleasant if not mundane traveling experience. Mundane is good. I don't think the opposite of mundane is OH SHIT..but it should be.
Traffic began to slow in spurts a few miles outside of Vegas. Electronic signs cautioned drivers: Wet road conditions: Use caution. Seemed a bit of an alarmist approach to a light sprinkle of rain here and there. One hardly had to adjust the wipers beyond slow/intermittent for them to keep up. Until they couldn't.
The moment between moderate rain and deafening, hit your windshield hard enough you think it's gong to break, total monsoon induced blindness type rain, was imperceptible. The traffic as a whole slowed to under 10 MPH. One moment I could make out flashing hazards lights on the car in front of me...the next, I couldn't see past the white-knuckled death grip on my own steering wheel. Were they still in front of me? Did they run off the road? Am I running off the road? I switched on my hazards just in case they would help at all. Wipers at full speed were irrelevant.
I could barely make out the distorted shape of a vehicle to my left. I could see nothing in front of or to my passenger side and of course, had no idea what was happening behind me. It wasn't blackness...it was more of a murky beige...like you were driving under water. I was in a center lane – so I could not pull over to the side even if I could see the side! The two things that kept me from drifting into the vehicles to each side of me was the white lane bumps and Jesus.
I was not afraid we were going to die. We were all going slow enough that if we crashed into one another – we'd likely survive without significant injury to human or horse. The damage to vehicles is what you carry insurance for. Weird, unexpected things run through your mind in these situations. I thought about mounted shooting and what Kenda L tells you to do when running patterns that can feel chaotic: “Slow your mind down.” I didn't really get that until this point. There was nothing to do BUT slow your mind down...stay in your lane...feel for the bumps and slowly react accordingly. I probably should have thought about breathing but that came after the fact.
Once my mind had slowed – I looked over at the empty passenger seat: I am alone. Regardless of what happens next – I felt totally and completely alone; singularly responsible for the dog in the back seat and the two horses behind me that don't know any better than to trust me unequivocally. That scared me more than death or dismemberment as a result of a massive freeway pile-up.
I needed more than prayer – I needed to feel the physical presence of someone I, too, can trust unequivocally. I don't know how you all picture Jesus in your mind, or if you even do. I am in the middle of binge watching The Chosen on Angel Studios. The Jesus that came to sit down beside me in my passenger seat looked suspiciously like Jonathan Roumie. James Caviezel being a close second. “Jesus –I don't know how you feel about Carrie Underwood – but now would be a really good time to take the wheel.”
I literally visualized Jonatha...Jesus's hand reaching across the seat to take hold of the bottom portion of the steering wheel. Both my hands were forever in that white-knuckle grasp around the top portion. We stared straight ahead – you can only control what is in your lane – block out what is happening in the other lanes – we would feel the tires hit the lane bumps and slowly make a correction back to the center of our lane. I don't know for how long or how far this went on. I remember now passing under three over-passes and possible exits – so I would guesstimate around 5 miles. A glimpse of what was happening would come into view when you drove under an over-pass, causing a reprieve in the sheet of water-blindness. Vehicles were crammed along the edges under the bridges – some at an angle – others facing the wrong way. I guess I can't blame them for taking the opportunity to pull over when they could. As for me and Jesus, parking under a bridge in a flash flood didn't seem like a wise move. The tires in front of me left a wake in the 4 inches of water running across the pavement under the bridge. I appreciate that Jesus took into consideration that only one of us could walk on water. The reprieve was brief as we emerged from under an over-pass once again into murky blindness.
It stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I could now see flashing hazard lights ahead of me. I could make out the face of a person in the passenger seat to my left: Surely the fear and relief in her eyes reflected my own.
I needed to get my bearings. I didn't know if I'd missed my exit or really where the hell we were at all. I found a wide spot on high ground and pulled over to catch my breath. I breathed a sigh of relief as my GPS reported the exit was two miles ahead.
Pulling back onto the freeway took some creative self-convincing. I was safe here – safe from driving blind and the worry of my horses being rear-ended. I was reminded of a similar time years ago on a pack trip in the Frank Church. A group of us got caught in a micro-burst while riding through a burn. Dead trees falling all around us – horses freaking out. Total chaos. By the time we reached higher ground out of the tree-line...we had one girl on the ground with a dislocated hip and my favorite hat lay under a tree. To get back to camp required us to ride back into the burn. Even though the wind had stopped...it took some doing to make yourself ride back into that mess. To this day, I will take a days ride around to avoid riding through a burn.
This felt similar...what if the monsoon hits again? There was little warning the first time. What if...what if. I couldn't sit here forever and neither Jonathan nor Jesus was going to force me to move. I only had two miles to the exit that would get me off the freeway and into lighter traffic. Time to shit or get off the pot. I threw on my blinker and glanced over at Jesus: Let's do this....
The big billboard loomed off to the right a quarter mile after pulling back onto the freeway. It read: JESUS – Do you know him? I again glanced to my right and smiled. My Jonathan Roumie interpretation of Jesus's likeness winked and smiled back.
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