Near Death Experience

T claims I nearly got us both killed crossing a mountain on I80, about 30 miles West of Donner Lake. Close to where the Donner Party spent the winter of 1846-1847.

I was trying to configure a GPS device with my right hand while driving with my left. Being ambidextrous, sort of, I am uniquely skilled at this kind of thing. There are laws against distracted driving, of course, but these do not anticipate people with my skill level.

Anyway, while I was configuring, on a high mountain pass I drove smack into a snow squall. The snow was horizontal.Visibility was zero. Soon dime-sized hail started banging down, ricocheting all over and making a lively racket. Snow and ice was accumulating on the windshield faster than the wipers could sweep it away.

I continued bravely, driving with one hand and fiddling with the GPS with the other. I am proud to have such motor skills at my age, and a good GPS signal is always useful.

Imagine, for example, how much easier it would have been for the Donner Party if they had had a GPS. I was thinking, too, that if we got stranded it would be handy if the rescue squad had our exact coordinates. In case they needed to call one of those ambulance helicopters, or a St. Bernard.

I looked over at T, expecting her to acknowledge my resourcefulness and dexterity. I was surprised to find her glaring at me. She glared the whole way over the top of the mountain and down the other side, right into Donner Pass.

You know, where the Donner Party spent the winter of 1846-1847. Long before satellites were orbiting the earth.

Later she told me that I should not have put our lives in danger like that! Can you imagine?! She said that if I had wrecked, and we both survived, she would have killed me!

I have a wealth of male logic at my disposal, so I used some of it:

I pointed out that, since we were surrounded by steep cliffs with thousand foot drop-offs, if we had crashed there wouldn't have been any survivors for her to kill. And since the visibility was nearly zero anyway, it didn't matter if I wasn't looking at the road every second.

I went on in this vein for a while, but it didn't work. She was mad at me all night and didn't smile till the next morning when she saw the view of Lake Tahoe from our hotel window.

I still think that we needed that GPS signal. The Donner Party survivors, after all, only made it through the winter of 1846-1847 by being resourceful.

The GPS did lead us straight to the hotel, which had a restaurant. One which the less resourceful members of the Donner Party would have appreciated.

I had tenderloin.

The view that prevented T from killing me