Mrs had made arrangements to take Cisco back to the breeder last Sunday morning, but we had to be at her place at 8AM. I was working the night before, but would go with her if she got me up. I assumed she would drive because of my lack of sleep, and I was correct.
We got up, did a few of the usual morning things and were out the door by 6:15 or so. It was a fairly nice morning on the Cape, though somewhat overcast, not overly cold.
As we drove north on I-495 and got closer to the Massachusetts Turnpike, I noticed the roads becoming damp with a fine mist and light rain falling and also watched as the thermometer readout on the 4Runner dashboard start to drop and get to that dangerous reading of 31 degrees F. In the area of Hopkinton, MA we saw several cars and a jackknifed tractor trailer unit in the median, the front end mashed to bits. All of them had been traveling in the southbound lanes. Mrs slowed down, though the road was still OK we didn't want to take any chances. The off ramp to the pike is at the bottom of a hill, which we and most others took very slow.
We had only one or two exits to go before getting off the pike which we took slow. At some point I had sent our friend a message to let her know we had to take our time because of the potential for ice.
That was an understatement. We got off at the appropriate exit, but took a wrong turn. A bit slippery, yes. This wrong took us onto a bridge that went over the Mass pike. I was looking down at something when in a split second, I felt us going not exactly straight and Mrs cursing like a truck driver. I looked up to find us still going forward, but at an angle and uncontrolled. Mrs did a superb job getting relative control of the 4Runner and got us over the bridge. Even the road surface off of the bridge was now icy. We watched as the cars and trucks in the opposite lanes slid down the hill in various forms of sideways.
We pulled off the road in a gravel parking lot full of used cars adjacent to a Fiat dealership to allow Mrs to get control of her shaking, which was completely understandable considering she has been through this before but ended up upside-down hanging from her seat belt a number of years ago.
I took over and we drove a bit further up the road to the side street next to Fiat dealership. We texted the breeder to bring her up to speed on our predicament. She suggested we make our was back down to the commuter parking lot near our initial wrong turn. I had seen a couple salt trucks going through the area already as well, but doubted it had taken . I fell in behind a tractor trailer unit which may or may not have been a good idea. I let it get well ahead of us, and we once again approached the dreaded bridge over the pike.
The TT unit almost immediately began to slide, but it seemed the driver was doing a phenomenal job controlling the skidding, though it was a bit startling to see the rig teetering on the edge of jackknifing. When we hit the bridge, we also began to slide. I took my foot off the gas and kept it well away from the brake despite the temptation to push down the pedal. We were moderately, sideways and i just steered as best I could to keep it somewhat on the road. About half way across I looked in my driver's side mirror and saw a car coming at as completely sideways and fairly fast. I started goosing the gas a bit, manipulating the steering wheel in an attempt to get us a bit further to the right, grinding my teeth as I watched the car approach. I felt I had gotten as far out of the way as possible and we braced for it. The car slid by just kissing the edge of our back bumper with hers. We heard a small 'snap!' noise and the car whizzed by us, then slammed into the left side of the bridge, it's front end crinkling some. We were SO lucky. I goosed the gas to get us moving a bit past her, still sliding, seeing the break between the bridge and the road, our best potential for less ice. Then I watched as a truck approached, sideways again and really moving, on our right. Luckily, this guy slammed into the bridge well before he got to us.
We made it to the commuter lot, checked the minor scrape on the bumper which is hardly noticeable. We had to be very careful to not fall in the lot.
The breeder showed up shortly thereafter. We talked a little bit, and handed Cisco off to her. It was not as hard to let him go as I expected, but perhaps that was the major distraction from of the weather.
We stayed in the parking lot for a short time watching the salt trucks going by, doing their job. We had an uneventful ride home.
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