So I know I haven't been active here as much as I should be, but I'm refocussing things in my life for reasons that will become obvious if you continue to read.

So, what I do for work right now is drive from Spokane WA to Missoula MT 4 nights a week. It's a 400 mile round trip, it's a road I've driven a zillion times, but it can suck during the wintertime.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on my way back from Missoula, about 60 miles along the way, around 8:30 at night, when I saw there were some semi rigs and other vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. I recognized this as a warning sign and decided I needed to pull over. But when I started to try to slow down, the ABS kicked in and I realized I was driving on miles and miles of black ice created by freezing rain.

I worked with the van and got it slowed down over several miles and found a spot on the shoulder of the road with few other vehicles around and pulled over and pulled as far onto the shoulder as I could without being in the grass. My body's entire supply of adrenaline had dumped into my system, so I was shaking and a bit nauseous, but I was safe on the side of the road. I got out of the van and nearly fell down on the pavement -- the road was like a skating rink. I wandered over into the grass and had a smoke and let my body process the panic I had just felt.

Ahead of me on the road there was a double trailer semi parked in an S shape blocking the entire highway, and further up the road around a curve it looked like a serious accident involving a few vehicles including a couple of semis had happened. Truckers often park this way on purpose to block off or warn about accidents. I sat in the van waiting for State Patrol to show up, or for snowplows/sanders/groomers to appear to open up the road again.

I had sat there for about 45 minutes when a semi rig came down the highway. It was obviously aiming to park in the big open space of the shoulder in front of my van, but as it came closer, the back end of the trailer swung toward the front of my van, missing it by inches. The semi stopped a bit up the road, and the driver got out of his vehicle and was walking toward me. I got out of my van and we had a bit of a conversation "wow, that was scary for a moment", "yeah, glad nothing happened" etc.

We talked for a while, complaining about how the roads hadn't been closed, how really dangerous the roads were, how shocked we were that there hadn't been more accidents, wondering where the State Patrol or the road groomers were...

As we talked we wandered through the snow/ice on the grass off the side of the road, but then I wanted another cigarette. I walked around to the driver side of the van to get my smokes, and the other driver followed me. He was standing by the driver's door of my van and I was standing about halfway back along the van, and we were still talking when all of a sudden he shouted "LOOK OUT" and ran.

I looked up toward the road and saw a semi rig that was just coming to a stop on the road, but the grade of the road (we were on a curve) caused the semi to slide sideways toward me. I looked right and looked left and realized that I had no safe escape.

"Well, I'm dead. Or I'm in the hospital for a long time." That's all the time I had to think to myself before the semi slammed into me, sandwiching me between it and the side of my delivery van.

When it was all done, I was standing in this tiny triangle. The semi hit me right at its pivot point between the tractor and the trailer, and the front of the semi was resting on the deer guard on the front of my van and the trailer was resting on the tail lights. And I wasn't dead.

But I was in this little space. I heard a voice shout "go down and under, get out of there", and panic set in. Was another truck going to hit the truck that just hit me? Jeebus! I dove down, but in front of me were the two giant wheels of the semi tractor. So I went backward, under my own van. Tried to go out the opposite side of the van, but the grass and ice on that side blocked me from getting out that way. So I went backward again, and slid out under the back end of my delivery van.

There was a lot of disbelief from drivers who witnessed me getting hit when I emerged and seemed to be walking and talking and mostly coherent. My adrenal glands dumped into my system again, and I wasn't feeling that great, but I was walking and talking, and I was alive and not even unconscious.

It took 4 hours before the State Patrol arrived to take statements about our accident; they had been busy with many other accidents on the road that night (I heard there were 14 along that 30 miles of highway, including one fatality and several requiring serious medical attention), and since we were all alive, we weren't a high priority.

I finally got through the process of dealing with the cops and stuff, and got turned around to Superior, a town about 8 miles backward. I got a hotel room there, and managed to sleep despite my pain.

When I got up the next morning, the poor little town of Superior had semi rigs parked along basically every street. The cops had closed the highway about 2 hours after I got hit, 3 hours after I started down that stretch of road, and they were parking everyone there. They finally opened the road again around 9am, nearly 12 hours after I had gotten hit. I finally got on my way back to the shop.

The long and the short of it, I have 2 cracked ribs on my right side and 3-4 cracked ribs on my left side. And pain, but that will go away with time as the ribs heal.

So, hey, furry friends. I'm still alive, even though I have no clue how or why. I will be more involved. Furs matter to me, and I've neglected this mode of interaction for far too long.