The worst road trip ever
USUALLY I enjoy travelling. There are few things I love more than filling up my car’s tank, taking on some supplies, pointing the arrows on my steering wheel in a direction and setting off into the great unknown with my favourite tunes being piped through the sound system.
The open road is a place where you can spend many hours simply unwinding from the day-to-day routine back home.
Yet last weekend I hated being on the road.
The nightmare started the day before the trip. I had such a nightmare of about the day that the packing, filling up and departure were all rushed; and I didn’t get to sleep as long as I’d hoped before leaving.
However, a few hours into the journey and I was starting to get into my travelling rhythm. The freezing night was about to give way to dawn and I settled in to do some daytime driving. I reached for my dark glasses only to discover that one lens had popped out of the frame. RATS!
Minutes later a warning light flashed on the dashboard – my car was overheating and I had to stop immediately! DOUBLE RATS! I wasn’t too worried though; I had “Roadside Assistance”, and I confidently dialled the number and … COLONY OF RATS! I soon learned that “Roadside Assistance” was more like “Casual Roadside Suggestions”.
“Just call a tow truck, find a garage, and we will reimburse your expenses in due time” … is not what you want to hear when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.
However, several prayers and one miracle later, I was driving again after an hour. I was driving tentatively, but at least I was making forward momentum again. The worry of overheating, the bright sun, and being without my dark glasses meant that I was driving even slower than usual, and my passengers would frequently hop out, pick flowers and jog alongside the car to stretch their legs.
Just when I thought that things were finally settling down I hit heavy traffic as I got to the Olifantskop Pass on the N10. Frustrated, I followed the slow-moving column until our procession came around a bend where a buck was casually standing on the side of the road.
The cars ahead of me drove by slowly and I followed … very slowly.
I think I heard the buck shout: “Sucker!” as he leaped forward and butted my car, putting a healthy series of dents and scratches along the side. He then ran off chuckling to himself.
Naturally I was not impressed.
A day later, on the way back to Kimberley, the GPS took me on such a detour that I had to fill up in a town that the residents hadn’t even heard of. An ambulance driver I spoke to at the service station warned me about the kudu activity on the road and I decided to take it even easier than usual. Other drivers were still playing their game called “blind your fellow road user”, a game I honestly don’t understand.
However, when I reflected on the perfect storm of a terrible trip I wondered … had I not been delayed on the road, and my dark glasses were OK, would I have missed the slow traffic on the pass, and could my meeting with the buck ended differently? Had I not run low on fuel and spoken to the ambulance driver, would I perhaps have been more interested in getting home quickly … and could there have been a kudu with my name on it out on that dark road from the obscure town?
At times, it seems, there can be valuable lessons in our frustrations.