A narrow miss

Today was the departmental yearly picnic for Ali's department, so we packed the whole family in and made the trek into Seattle for the afternoon. It was great to see the faculty and staff, and Leila had fun playing with the other children and seeing Joe's juggling act. We left the gathering in good spirits.

Being Seattle, it was raining. Not hard, just your usual Seattle rain. Traffic was neither light nor heavy. Just as we were at the apex of the ramp to merge from I-5 to I-90, precisely here: google map. We were going about 40ish mph coming up to the merge, when suddenly my tires lost grip and we careened towards the barrier (that keeps you from going over the edge, probably a 40 ft drop), and then the tires gripped and we shot across the freeway spinning, tires smoking. We came to a stop almost about a 240 to our original position, staring down oncoming traffic and shocked that we hit nothing in our spin on this busy stretch of highway. We quickly corrected ourselves and pulled to the shoulder to gather our wits to the smell of burnt rubber; and also to make sure it wasn't a burst tire or something that had caused me to lose control of the car. Our only guess is an oil slick, which is what if felt like to my unexperienced hands. It all happened so fast, I couldn't tell you what went through my mind, or whether I turned with the spin at the beginning or against it, and if that is what caused us to spin across the highway. It was surreal and terrifying, and of course now I am completely torn up about it, what could have happened, and how lucky we are that no one was hurt. In those first few seconds I was sure we were going to hit the barrier and just hoping that we wouldn't flip over the edge!

Interestingly enough Ali and I had been carrying on a heated conversation about god and the problem of evil, and the nature of god, whether there is one, etc (we are both agnostic)... an interesting coincidence. Does this change my mind about the existence of God? er... no. But it does make one think! Ali's first comment was that God heard our conversation and wanted to provide proof, and showed the nature of God is not all-good. I pointed out that we were not hurt, rather miraculously if you ask me.