Death Proximity Alarm

I nearly had a go at the pearly gates twice in as many days. The first experience was on the famed interstate 80. I was taking this illustrious thoroughfare the extreme distance of two exits down to Oakland. After merging onto the interstate, I decided to move one lane over. Being the expert driver that I am, I checked my mirrors AND my blindspot for surrounding cars. Nevertheless, as I began to make my move my friend in the passenger seat blurts out "Watch out!" midsentence and I swerve the wheel back. A sweet sportscar comes screaming by approximately 1-2 inches away and promptly slams on his brakes as he realizes that not everyone is going at 200+ mph. Of course, this realization doens't stop him from flipping me the bird when I roll by him a minute later. Yay for roadrage (or roidrage, he may have been heading to Balco for all I know)!

The second time I cheated death was on the East Fork of the Carson River. Alex, my research advisor, is an avid outdoorsman and invited everyone in our research group up to his place near South Lake Tahoe for a rafting trip. He had a raft and a couple of kayaks that a couple of experienced guys were going to use. Alex suggested that people who had never kayaked could take this class II river in an inflatable kayak. Well, Benji made the mistake of instead getting the Cobra Tandem, which (in keeping with its rockin' name) was a rockin' boat, in the sense of being extremely top heavy.

It was a bad sign when he and his wife flipped the boat less than five seconds into the adventure. A quarter of way down the river and many flips later, he and his wife were shivering and looking for someone to take over the Cobra. Kenny and I gave it our best, but after flipping at least 5 times we ditched the boat and sprinted shivering into the 100+ degree hotsprings ate the lunch take out. After lunch Benji and Mike (the most top heavy member of our expedition) valiantly attempted to tame the beast, but didn't even make it five minutes down the river. I took over for Mike and it appeared that Benji and I had the Cobra charmed.

Until we got sucked into a whirlpool! Yeah, they're real. Before this weekend I thought they fell into the legendary category with quicksand and the Big Foot (who Benji claims to have seen in Oregon?!?). As Benji and I tried to take a sharp corner, the current pushed us behind a rock and then the whirlpool caught us and flipped our boat. Having become very adept at quickly righting the boat we jumped back on and steadied ourselves. Thinking we could avoid the pull we sprinted as fast as we could away from the swirling waters only to to be flipped and sucked back in. I threw myself away from the boat and thankfully the whirlpool spun me around but gently deposited me up against the rocks. I clambered out and tried to get around to Benji, but the rock was too steep. Luckily some other boaters in some very manuveurable pontoon boats came along and gave Benji and I rides down to our capsized craft.

After that adventure we didn't flip the raft again, oh yeah, except right as we were parking it to get out, we flipped the Cobra once more for good measure. Take that!