Every year around my mother in-law’s birthday we visit my wife’s parents. This has been going on for some time now and every year there is something that happens on the way there. Her parents live about a few hours away, but the preparation for the trip, the travel, and arrival all becomes complicated at one point or another. In fact, we have planned ahead this time to avoid any unnecessary headaches.
For example, the last few times we made the trip there was some type of accident that occurred. On our very first trip, actually, we got a flat tire. Another trip, we lost our gift. Actually, we think we got robbed as we pulled over at a convenience store to get some coffee. We had left the car on to keep it warm. This last time, I broke my black sport watch. I was pulling our luggage through the door and I had my hand in the door frame for support. She slammed the door and luckily it hit my watch, which shattered.
On my birthday, my wife made up for her actions by buying me a new men’s sport watch. This one is nicer than the first one, looks good, and can take a lick. For this year’s trip we packed our clothes and stored the bags in the car the night before. We also had my mother in-law’s gift sent directly to her home. I had taken our car to the local mechanic for tune up, as well. Furthermore, we became members of a twenty four hour auto service that guarantees timely response.
Clearly, we thought and planned ahead, accordingly. We also made our coffee at home and poured it into easy carry travel mugs. Our directions were mapped out in advance to avoid any pitfalls. We were up early and ready to begin our journey.
The first portion of the drive involved suburban driving. We were then going to use the expressway to get to her parent’s town. This would encompass a bulk of the driving time. The distance from our home to her parents was about one hundred and twenty miles.
It took a bit longer than expected to reach the expressway. However, once we were on, the traffic was light. The number of cars on the road was very sparse. There seemed to be mostly weekend travelers either going or coming from some leisure destination. One truck appeared to be on its way to ski slopes as it had skis secured to its roof.
In order to be safe, we were going at the recommended speed limit. However, the ski truck was driving more aggressively. The driver was changing lanes in order to find more open space. He seemed in a hurry. He quickly passed us and seemed like he was going twice our speed. After a few seconds, I noticed a dark object suddenly appear flying for our windshield. It was round in shape and small in size. The closer it got the easily we could make out its composition. The object was a giro ski helmet.
