On the Way to Waco…

Every year, after Thanksgiving, we take a trip to Waco.

Homestead Heritage hold their annual Fair that week-end and for many years we’ve bought their beautifully crafted brooms, slippers, scarves, cast iron skillet handle holders, mixing bowls, mugs and tea pots.

We’ve enjoyed watching the raising of a barn.

Learning how to blacksmith and weave.

Taking classes in beekeeping or homesteading.

Watching dogs herding and rope making.

Experiencing the grist mill.

Shopping for cheese and seeds.

At lunchtimes we’ve looked forward to their home-cooked fare and marvelled at the efficiency with which they serve the masses.

Sometimes it’s rainy, usually it’s muddy and most often it’s cold.  We still arrange to meet up with our son and daughter-in-law in the late morning to spend the afternoon together and experience community living at its best.

I usually make the drive there otherwise it falls to Hubs to sit behind a wheel for four hours. No fun after a hearty meal the previous day.

This year I was tootling along on the final stretch of I-35 before coming into Waco.  I was in the middle lane at the tail end of an articulated lorry in the slow lane to my right.  I decided to get him behind me and as I was passing noticed he began to creep over the line…

…not so much creep as to make a quite determined effort to overtake the vehicle in front of him by pulling over into my lane.

I checked the fast lane to my left and a pick-up truck was passing so I looked quickly in my rear view mirror and braked hoping to avoid a collision as I watched the front end of the lorry looming in front of me.

“Sorry mate,” I muttered to the vehicle behind me as I slowed down.

I hoped to slip in behind the pick-up before I was run off the road by the barrelling, oblivious, eighteen wheeler.  As the pick-up cleared me I went to make my move and realised the it was pulling a trailer with a corvette on it.

“Whoa!” I said adjusting my wheel and pulling ever so slightly right again.  The pick-up truck driver blasted his horn and picked up speed.

With my brakes on I saw the vast side of the lorry only inches away from Hubs in the passenger seat.

“Whoa!” he said as it looked as though we would be squashed.

I hugged my arms to my sides and kept my eyes to the left so I could jump lanes when there was a space.

My foot still braking.

The articulate lorry driver finally caught sight of me and veered back into his lane, horn blaring.

Not a moment too soon I slipped in behind the trailer and corvette out of harm’s way.

Thank God for an 8 cylinder!

The huge lorry disappeared from my sight and we both started breathing again.

Hours later I was still thinking about our close shave, batting around several scenarios in my head and wondering at my calmness.

I turned to Hubs between bites of our chicken korma,

“I’ve decided that whatever I did this morning was exactly the right thing…because here we are enjoying our lunch.”

“Exactly!!” he said with a gulp.

“Your Guardian Angel was with you,” my children said.

Yes indeed.

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