A Miracle

Yesterday we decided to bust out and take advantage of living in a beautiful place in the mountains.  We loaded the car and much to the kids dismay, we drove to Estes National Park.  The weather was absolutely beautiful and the temperature was in the mid 70's.  I tried to be the mom that talks up the excitement about what we were about to experience, but I'll be honest, I don't think one other person was looking forward to a nice hike in the mountains.

(When did I become the outdoorsy one of the bunch??)

We ended up having a nice time and I would post pictures, but my laptop is broken and since I don't want to download our family photos on Romney's work laptop, I will save the pics and details of our day for a later post.

The drive home was unreal and my stomach still drops as I think about all that could have gone wrong.  We miraculouslyavoided a deadly car accident.  It is truly a miracle that we drove away from scene with our car and family intact. 

On the drive home, the traffic was steady on the 2-lane canyon road.  I carefully drove down and tried not to pay too much attention to the steep cliff on my right  As we carefully made our way down the winding road, I noticed that the huge semi-truck behind me was getting really close to my bumper.  I was a little concerned.  Suddenly the truck got really close to us and then swerved left into the lane with on-coming traffic.  Then the truck swerved back into our land then and we heard this huge scraping sound.  

I turned around and saw the truck was scraping along the steel barrier that separated the road from the cliff.  Smoke was billowing out from the tires.  Fortunately, there was a pull-off spot right in front of me.  I somehow made my way into the pull-off spot and watched the truck slam into the steel barrier.  I was sure that the truck was going to roll off the cliff.  Smoke was everywhere.

Romney got out of the car and ran to see if the driver was hurt.  The truck was literally hanging off the cliff.  We learned that driver’s quick and careful reaction saved my family. 

His brakes went out and he swerved into the barrier with the hopes that it would slow him down.  He said, “I knew that you had a family in that van and I did not want to hit you”.  He was literally willing to sacrifice his life by possibly toppling over the cliff in order to avoid ramming into us.

We got several pictures and my stomach still turns as I think about all that could have gone wrong. It was quite humbling to realize that we had been protected.

We were part of a miracle.  I still can’t believe it.

Romney and I profusely thanked the driver.  I even hugged him as we left the scene.