I can now officially check "ride in a tow truck" off my bucket list. Okay, it was never actually there, but if it were, I could cross it off. See that beauty to the left? That's a 1991 Chevy van. Woot! I currently work part time for a machine shop. I drive a van very similar to the one shown here a good portion of the time. A couple days ago when I was driving home after making all my deliveries, the van died....in the middle of the freeway. Here's how it went down. I was driving along (probably singing along with the radio) when I realized I was starting to slow down. The van is kind of loud and, as I mentioned, I was on the freeway, so I didn't notice the lack of noise coming from
my engine. I did the first thing that came to my mind--pushed harder on the accelerator. Needless to say, that accomplished nothing. My second thought was, "Oh crap! I need to get to the shoulder." My second thought mayber should have been turn on your hazards... But it wasn't. The big issue with getting over to the shoulder was that I was rapidly slowing down while the rest of traffic wasn't. There were four lanes of traffic and I was in number three.
I turned on my blinker, repeatedly said things like, "Please let me over," and squeezed through two lanes and onto the shoulder. Once I was safely out of the way of traffic, my thought was to turn on my hazards. I turned off the car and tried to start it again. Well, it didn't start, so I called up my boss and told him that I had bad news--the van had died. He arranged for a tow truck to come get me, and I sat in the van for a lengthy amount of time until he could get there. No worries though. I kept myself entertained. I texted some peeps, scribbled on scrap paper... I was actually pleasently surprised at how fast time went by. Besides, I had a great view from where I was trapped. It was something like this:
For those of you who can't tell, that is in fact Seattle, which is quite a bit away from where I was heading. You can even make out a little space needle on the horizon! So things weren't all bad. I was trying to count my blessings at that moment, the biggest one being that no one got hurt. I made it safely to the side of the road, and help was on the way. I had finished all my deliveries, so there would be no impatient customers. When the tow truck came, the driver mentioned that I was lucky to break down where I did because I little ways back where I had been driving at one point there was no shoulder to pull off on. I hadn't even realized that little fact. I'm extremely grateful that things turned out so well. I'm grateful to my boss who sorted things out even called to check up on me (which is probably a good thing because I could have gone insane sitting there... traffic rushing by...). Things definitely could have been worse, and I'm so glad they weren't. I think that's enough adventure for one week :)
I can now officially check "ride in a tow truck" off my bucket list. Okay, it was never actually there, but if it were, I could cross it off. See that beauty to the left? That's a 1991 Chevy van. Woot! I currently work part time for a machine shop. I drive a van very similar to the one shown here a good portion of the time. A couple days ago when I was driving home after making all my deliveries, the van died....in the middle of the freeway. Here's how it went down. I was driving along (probably singing along with the radio) when I realized I was starting to slow down. The van is kind of loud and, as I mentioned, I was on the freeway, so I didn't notice the lack of noise coming from my engine. I did the first thing that came to my mind--pushed harder on the accelerator. Needless to say, that accomplished nothing. My second thought was, "Oh crap! I need to get to the shoulder." My second thought mayber should have been turn on your hazards... But it wasn't. The big issue with getting over to the shoulder was that I was rapidly slowing down while the rest of traffic wasn't. There were four lanes of traffic and I was in number three. 
I turned on my blinker, repeatedly said things like, "Please let me over," and squeezed through two lanes and onto the shoulder. Once I was safely out of the way of traffic, my thought was to turn on my hazards. I turned off the car and tried to start it again. Well, it didn't start, so I called up my boss and told him that I had bad news--the van had died. He arranged for a tow truck to come get me, and I sat in the van for a lengthy amount of time until he could get there. No worries though. I kept myself entertained. I texted some peeps, scribbled on scrap paper... I was actually pleasently surprised at how fast time went by. Besides, I had a great view from where I was trapped. It was something like this: 
For those of you who can't tell, that is in fact Seattle, which is quite a bit away from where I was heading. You can even make out a little space needle on the horizon! So things weren't all bad. I was trying to count my blessings at that moment, the biggest one being that no one got hurt. I made it safely to the side of the road, and help was on the way. I had finished all my deliveries, so there would be no impatient customers. When the tow truck came, the driver mentioned that I was lucky to break down where I did because I little ways back where I had been driving at one point there was no shoulder to pull off on. I hadn't even realized that little fact. I'm extremely grateful that things turned out so well. I'm grateful to my boss who sorted things out even called to check up on me (which is probably a good thing because I could have gone insane sitting there... traffic rushing by...). Things definitely could have been worse, and I'm so glad they weren't. I think that's enough adventure for one week :)
