In Like a Lion...

I'm not sure if anyone uses the expression anymore, but when I was a kid, I often heard the month of March described as follows:

In like a lion, out like a lamb.

I believe the quote was attributed to Chaucer or Shakespeare (or one of them other high-falutin' Greeks). It was supposed to mean that the month arrived all blustery and dangerous, roaring with wind and biting you with the sharp teeth of winter's bitter cold...but then became mild and fluffy as it meekly gave way to glorious April. Of course, it never quite seemed to apply in Kansas where I grew up, because April was also likely to feature carnivorous winds and flesh-ripping cold. But the people who quote dead poets to describe seasonal meteorology never seemed to care.

Anyway, I knew the wind was blowing hard when I left work, but I still thought I'd get home quicker by taking Highway 93. That decision turned out to be a poor one.

The traffic wasn't too bad, but my car was buffeted, and I don't mean that in the "Cheeseburger in Paradise" sense. I had to hold onto the steering wheel with a kung-fu grip. There was a truck tipped over on 93, but it was off on the shoulder and didn't cause a problem. But there was some serious sandblasting going on with all sorts of gritty stuff being picked up from the plains and heaved at my car with gusto. There was one stretch where I literally couldn't see more than about 30 feet. Scary.

But losing a little paint isn't nearly as frightening as what happened on C470. I was at about Alameda when I saw a big sheet of cardboard flying toward the road from the west side. It looked like it would make it to my lane just about when my car got there. I thought I had a chance to beat it if I speeded up...but then it flew even higher -- and I saw that it wasn't cardboard, but was a big honkin' sheet of plywood! It was about 4 feet by 8 feet and I realized there wasn't anything I could do but grip the wheel and hang on for impact.

The good news is that I didn't lose control of the car. But like I said, I have no idea how much damage the impact did. It hit the front of the car, and then whacked the chassis underneath as I drove over (and through) it. I don't know what happened behind me.

Ka-whump!

Got my heart pumping, that's for sure. But I'm okay, and I'm hoping that the impact I felt was a good demonstration of the superiority of steel over wood, and that the damage is all cosmetic. As far as I can tell from a visual inspection, there was a bunch of broken plastic but no harm done to the radiator or any other working parts.


I'll drive carefully for the next few days and will be alert to signs of functional distress from the vehicle. And of course, there are calls to the insurance company and body shop estimates to arrange, so I'm not through with fallout from the incident yet.

Oh, and by the way, I saw lots of smoke (and smelled it) around Hwy 6, but no flames. I have no idea how the firefighters could possible battle this one. With winds that can fling plywood hundreds of feet, well...it's just flat nasty out there. The weird thing was that the windmills along Highway 93 weren't moving at all when I drove by. I thought they were supposed to harness the wind, not ignore it. Geez. My guess is that gust of that power could tear the blades right off the tower, or get the turbines spinning so fast that the generated electricity couldn't be handled by the equipment they have. And if too much of that generated energy leaked off the system and went into the ground, well, we all know what would happen then, right? Yes, corpses from the local cemeteries would be reanimated and, presto, we got ourselves a zombie problem.

For now, though, it appears that flying debris is all we have to worry about. It's just another reminder to always watch the skies, my friends. Be careful out there, and have a great day!