Driving Into Danger

Friday, July 28, 2006

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Driving Into Danger

By J’AMY PACHECO

As a mother, I try my best to keep my child out of harm’s way.

I don’t let her swim at somebody’s house unless I’m there to supervise. If she visits a neighborhood friend, I walk her to the door and collect her when playtime ends. I use a very limited number of childcare providers, and when we’re in public places, I take her into restroom stalls with me.

I like to think I’m in control. But a road trip last weekend showed me that even when I’m at the wheel, I’m not as in-charge as I’d like to think.

Shortly after leaving my High Desert home, I had to turn on the windshield wipers to clear the raindrops that had begun to fall. Rain wasn’t completely unexpected, but the accompanying dust storm surprised the heck out of me. Falling rain and blowing dust are two things I don’t think I’d ever seen combined.

That should have been a sign to turn around and go home. But I didn’t see it that way, and moments later, I found myself stopped near the top of the Cajon Pass. A lighted sign indicated there was a lane closure ahead and that delays should be expected.

Assuming the lane closure was caused by construction, I continued the slow crawl down the pass for about 45 minutes. About halfway down, I noticed a plume of white smoke snaking out from behind the mountain. In a matter of minutes, the smoke grew darker and more plentiful, leading me to believe a car was on fire.

A burning car would have been something of a relief, for as we came around a bend, I realized the mountain itself was on fire.

There was no way to exit. To my right was more of the mountain; to my left was a steep drop over a brush-covered hill. There was no alternative but to continue crawling toward the fire.

I tried to convince my daughter to take a nap. It didn’t work, though, so I gave her my camera phone as a distraction.

“Try to take a picture through the window,” I suggested in my very best fake upbeat voice. “You’ll never get this close to a brush fire again.”

It was hard to keep my fear in check as we inched closer to the fire. I didn’t dare even call my husband for reassurance, because I knew if my daughter found out how scared I was, she would be terrified.

Once we cleared the lookie-loos, we were able to zoom away from the flames. A short time later, as we zipped across the 10 freeway, the outdoor temperature rose to 120 degrees.

In the midst of that incredible heat, the last thing I expected to encounter was a tropical downpour. But that’s exactly what we soon hit, and we watched in disbelief as the car’s external temperature gauge dropped like a stone, falling 30 degrees in less than five minutes.

Within 10 miles, it was back up into the triple digits.

The final stretch of our 99-mile trek took us up Highway 62 into Yucca Valley. It was hot enough that I decided to give my car a break, turning the air conditioner off on the hills.

When we approached the last and biggest of those hills, I noticed that the pavement ahead appeared to be a different color than the section of road we were on. I assumed it was different because I was on a newly paved section of road.

When we hit the silver section, I realized it was different because it was wet. It was hard to see through the torrential rain — but I couldn’t miss the enormous bolt of lightening that shot straight down from the sky to the ground on my left.

The first one made me gasp. The second one caused my daughter to curl herself into a ball in her booster seat and sob, “I want to go home!”

We were within a mile of my parent’s house, so I thought it was safer to keep going and get in the house – even though the road was taking us higher and closer to the source of the lightening.

I couldn’t help seeing the irony in the fact that a candidate for the world’s most overprotective mother had driven her child into this situation. For the second time that day, I felt foolish, afraid and unsure of what to do.

But we made it, and fortunately, the road home the following day was clear and dry. The most dangerous thing we encountered was a bag of curly fries from a drive through fast food restaurant.

It was an interesting lesson. You can be as careful as possible, but when it comes down to it, you don’t get to control much of what happens in this unpredictable world of ours.

It’s enough to drive an overprotective mother crazy…