.............As we were driving up Highway 50, we approached the community of Cameron Park and began to climb in altitude.  I was in the right hand lane of the highway and there was a large semi-truck in front of me struggling to make it up the hill.  Traffic was light and there were no vehicles on the left side of me, so I turned on my signal and began moving over.  But just as I began passing the slow moving truck,  a huge sheet of plywood suddenly appeared out of nowhere and came flying at us from the left side and smacked into the my van.  It caromed off the left front side and flew up and went completely over our van.  Unbelievable. We never saw where it came from.  I looked all around me and there were no other vehicles around, except for us and the truck.  Luckily it didn’t go through our windshield. It would be tough running around without a head.  My wife immediately looked up.  “What was that?” she asked me.  “I don’t know, it looked like a piece of plywood” I told her as I glanced over to the right side and looked into my side view mirror.  I could not see the board anyplace. Most certainly it didn’t come off the big rig since the container was fully enclosed. 

I had been driving in the first and second lanes from the right side and my only guess would be that the board came from the other side of the highway from somebody driving in the opposite direction.  This had to be one of those DIY’s (do it yourselfer) returning from Home Depot and didn’t secure the board adequately in the back of their truck or on top of their car (God forbid).  I don't know for sure and I will never find out.  I am just glad nothing serious happened. 

Having averted a near catastrophe, I slowed down and allowed myself to drift behind the large truck as we approached the next exit. We then did a stage right and pulled over into the parking lot of a mini-mall nearby and 'surveyed' the damage.  Amazingly, there was just a small nick where the board hit.  It was amazing that there was no other damage. Cats have nine lives, but I must have more.  I have definitely had more than my share of close calls throughout my life.

I could have circled back around on the highway and parked near the board on the side of the highway and see if the person that ‘lost it’ would come over to retrieve it and I could take his license number and turn it over to the police.  If and when he arrived there, I could pretend like I was picking up the board and if he was stupid enough to say that it was his, and then I could report him.  No big deal.  The Highway Patrol couldn’t do anything about it, even though it almost flew through my windshield.  Don’t you just get pissed off when people are so negligent?

I guess that ‘getting there is half the fun?’ We have had so many other ‘close calls.’ One morning we were heading south on Highway 99 to another event near Fresno.  We were a little way past the city of Modesto and I was driving in the second lane from the left which, in this case, happened to be the middle lane. The sun had just risen over the horizon to the left of me and I had a clear view in front.  As I drove around a curve, another car appeared in front of me.  I watched him as he suddenly veered off to the right and I just happened to quickly see that he was averting slamming into a vehicle that was just sitting in the same lane as us. I reacted quickly and grasped my steering wheel firmly with both hands, slowed down a little bit and veered off to the left quickly, knowing that there was nobody in that lane since I had checked my rear view mirror just before As I passed by, I saw that there was nobody in the car and I couldn’t see anybody standing near the highway awaiting help or whatever.  The car was just left there right in the middle of the highway.  “Oh I guess I have to go to the bathroom and I’ll just park it here.”  “I have to get something to eat, so I’ll leave it here…no traffic this time of day.”  “Oh, traffic was so bad last night; I left my car in the middle of the highway.  I forgot that it wasn’t a parking lot.” This person did something really stupid.

People, please do me a favor and just don’t leave your car sitting in the middle of the highway like that.

(order book to read more)