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Okay -- crazy but true
I bought our '06 Cayman 36 in Dallas in 2000 and took it directly to a motorcycle lift dealer/installer who took a couple of days custom-fabricating mounts and installing the lift, and then I took off for home in Pensacola, flat-towing a Chevy Cobalt TOWD. This was in the middle of the COVID insanity and Louisiana was quarantined so i drove northeast to Texarkana, skimmed over Louisiana just across the Arkansas line to Greenville, MS, then headed south down narrow, gawd-forsaken US61, raised above flood plane fields. I had been up since 6 a.m. and it was one or two in the morning. I had no business driving but there was literally no place to get off the road, no shoulders, no side roads, no driveways, nothing. I'm barreling down a two-or three-mile-long straight. The only lights I can see are single, lonely security lights far off in the distance. Then there is a set of headlights straight in front of me, maybe a mile away. Bleary-eyed, I aim for them, then aim slightly to the right. Distance closes. The headlights are steady. And them I'm on them and suddenly they are backing up at high speed, dust swirling up in front of them and then I'm on a dirt road roaring past a car in high-gear reverse and nothing looks right and I stand on the brakes, and when the dust clears I'm on a narrow dirt road, involuntarily bouncing in the seat from adrenaline overdose, but safe. The car has apparently gone on its way. But how the hell did I come to this state?
The answer is that US61 made a gentle curve to the left; the dirt road was an arrow-straight shot straight ahead, and traffic coming in and out of the dirt road had worn away the white shoulder line. That and my sleep-deprived, exhausted state was all it took.
But the story doesn't end there. The GPS showed that dirt road proceeding straight a little bit then hooking left and rejoining US61. So after the bouncing stopped I drove cautiously forward, expecting to rectify my situation without even the embarrassment of witnesses. I crawled along. There was a loud scrape, a bang-snap, and I jammed on the brakes again. Got out to look what happened. I'd snagged a very low-hanging power line crossing the dirt road, yanked it down from a pole on the high side, pulled down a little pole in the yard of a mobile home, and knocked out his power.
A next-door neighbor was the first to appear. He was calm and seemed helpful, but his power was still on. Then the man from the darkened trailer came out. He was a bit hyper. In fact he was a lot hyper. By that time I was on the roof, my leather belt under the power line, moving it forward over the front AC. I intended to back out. He intended that I did not. "Chill! Just chill!" he was yelling. I chilled. I wasn't going to be successful anyway with the TOAD behind me. Some one of us called the Mississippi Highway Patrol and waited half of forever for one to arrive. The young officer was very professional, calm, and helpful. I told him the whole story, let him know I was prepared to be responsible, showed him paperwork proof that I had bound proper insurance before leaving Dallas, etc. There was a T intersection with another narrow dirt road just behind me. He helped me unhook the TOAD (I didn't want him to but I wasn't about to tell him to stand aside) and I backed it around the corner and far enough up the side road, then he flagged me in the RV around the corner in reverse. He got in my way trying to help me reattach the TOWD. I found out I wasn't the first to run straight off the highway. They told me that recently a car had gone well beyond where my forward progress stopped and took out a row of big country garbage cans and the county garbage truck had stopped trying to get under the wire.
Footnote: An hour or so later I came into a town with a truck stop on the left. With relief and prayers of gratitude I turned in. Not a single slot I could use as a pull-through. Turning left back onto the highway I saw there was a Wal-Mart on a hill way back off the highway, with a long drive that crossed a deep ditch and a service road. AH! I turned in -- and there was a huge steel arch with a 13-foot clearance notice. I didn't dare. So unhook the TOWD, back it out of the drive onto the service road, back the RV down and around the corner, line up on the TOWD -- and I see a local patrol car crossing the highway headed my way. He was skeptical at first but soon enough bought into my tale and told me it I went down the service road to the light I could turn right and up the hill find a side entrance to the Wal-Mart parking lot. Which I did. By how it was around 3:00 a.m. There wasn't another vehicle the huge lot. I parked up close to the building to find as level a place as I could, shut down, and rolled onto the bed expecting to get three or so hours' sleep. The sound of a loud exhaust woke me . . . at 8:00 . . . and I was surrounded by cars . . . .
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