I can make many excuses for my lack of posts over the last six months: I started a completely new career which has definitely been an adjustment and “stepping out of my comfort zone” has been more challenging than I ever imagined it could be; Moving to a country where English isn’t the main language (no matter how many times I might have jokingly said that about the US) and having little to no mental capacity left over from learning my new job; Helping The Wife feel comfortable in her new surrounding on her first international move; and the fact that I was up to date on my life history through cars. Living and working in Munich is very easy without a car so I have been car less for six months….. six long months.
But the truth is I just haven’t felt like writing, until now…
I haven’t stopped obsessing about cars and the six months are over (but I will get back to that) but that isn’t why I am writing again. Let me explain…
Last month it was Easter and in much of Europe that means a four day weekend, so I decided it was a great opportunity to show The Wife some of the continent and to pick up some of the items that my parents had been storing since I moved to California. This could mean only one thing – Road Trip!!!
We had hoped to take our own car but due to some complications with the financing (after 18 years with one company, it never entered my mind that the bank might be concerned about a probation period clause!) I picked up the rental car from Avis. On arrival I was offered a complimentary upgrade to an E Class Mercedes or a Jaguar XF (is it just me that can’t say Jaguar without hearing Clarkson saying Jaaag?). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eWIrBOc3zE)
I’m confident the E class is the better car and would have been an amazing companion for our high speed cuise, but I had been considering buying another Jag so figured it was a great opportunity for an extended test-drive and climbed aboard.
On Thursday evening we set the navigation system for Bonn and joined the holiday traffic leaving Munich. We knew it would be bad but decided it was better to break the journey rather than try and make Calais in one day.
Something I haven’t written about on here was my experience in LA in February. I had arrived at 6pm at LAX and started my drive to The Wife’s parents house in a nice red Mustang convertible that I had rented for the week. After only 30 minutes of driving the traffic had slowed to a crawl and as I stopped I looked in the rearview mirror and thought to myself “they’re going too fast and won’t be able to stop”. A few hours later I said goodbye to the beaten up little Mustang ($10900 worth of damage!) and continued my journey.
Now the reason I am mentioning this is because of what happened next on our roadtrip….
About two hours after leaving Munich the traffic started to build and we had to drop from our nice comfortable 180km/h cruise down to a crawl. As we slowed I thought to myself about my previous incident and started to feel vulnerable sitting at the back of almost stationary traffic on a road with no speed limit so I watched my mirrors… and as I did a Seat approached us, still going at about 180km/h. I hit my hazard lights as is the norm in Europe to indicate that the traffic was stopping, but he just kept coming. I moved the car to the far left of my lane and prepared to be hit. At the last minute he moved to the hard shoulder and I assumed he would just fly by as he braked and then he would rejoin the traffic… That’s not what happened.
The Seat Ibiza passed us still travelling at about 100km/h and then suddenly swerved 90 degrees left into two cars in front of us where he slammed into two cars with so much force the car left the ground. As it landed a huge fire ball shot into the air. It was the kind of thing you see in movies.
We pulled over and dialled the emergency services, who luckily spoke English, but soon realised that we couldn’t give an accurate location. I called a passing man and he joined us on the phone giving details. Some brave people pulled out one passenger who was clearly unconscious and told us that the female passenger was already dead and that the flames were already too strong for them to risk pulling her out.
It was horrible watching as the black plume of smock filled the sky and hearing small explosions every few minutes as other parts of the cars caught fire.
Eventually we continued our journey along the autobahn. It was now dark and in my slightly shaken state I cruised at a sensible 140km/h, wincing as every 200km/h car flew by.
Four long hours later we exited the Autobahn and nearly had another accident as a car flew straight across us at a T junction. If I had accelerated away from the light at my normal speed rather than my shell shocked crawl then I might not be writing this now.
Seeing two people die in front of us was deeply disturbing. Add in the near miss we started to question our decision to drive to the UK. “Are we living the movie Final Destination?” we asked each other.
We continued and I am glad we did… over the next few days we crossed from Germany into Holland, Belgium, France, the UK and into Switzerland. We had lunch in Brussels (sadly not Mussels because they had run out!), and on our final day we had breakfast in Paris, lunch in Bourgogne and dinner in Zurich. It was an epic 3100km road trip and the Jaguar was a reliable and comfortable companion.
…..coming soon to a blog near you, car 24:
Dreams, cars and dreams about cars 