lph
10-17-2007, 04:17 AM
I wrote this on bikejournal yesterday, but wanted to re-post it here, it's still buzzing around my head. She was only 24 :(
"My commute by bike this morning wasn't, but it was pretty dramatic so I figured I'd write it up anyway:
Part of my job is licensing hydropower plants, and I was going to spend today visiting a fairly large project. Way off in the boondocks, like most of them - you need a lot of rain, or steep valleys, or preferably both, and people tend to move away from places like that - in this case 1 hr by plane plus 1 hr by car with a 15 min ferry ride in the middle. I get into the rental car, figure out that Route 55 is where I'm supposed to be heading, turn on the radio and manage to think "gee, travelling alone is kind of nice" before the news announcer tells me that "a woman alone in her car was killed by a large block of stone crashing through her front windshield this morning and route 55 is now closed."
Eeep. :eek:
After a lot of phoning I decided to drive the "long way", which in fjord country means a three hour drive. Right before I left the project manager phoned to tell me he'd managed to arrange a boat to pick me up. And while waiting, boat guy phones me to tell me the road has opened early.
Which was a good thing of course, but still - driving through a fresh rockfall, with helicopters and geologists buzzing around where a woman recently died... was a sobering experience.
Anyway. That was my "commute" today."
"My commute by bike this morning wasn't, but it was pretty dramatic so I figured I'd write it up anyway:
Part of my job is licensing hydropower plants, and I was going to spend today visiting a fairly large project. Way off in the boondocks, like most of them - you need a lot of rain, or steep valleys, or preferably both, and people tend to move away from places like that - in this case 1 hr by plane plus 1 hr by car with a 15 min ferry ride in the middle. I get into the rental car, figure out that Route 55 is where I'm supposed to be heading, turn on the radio and manage to think "gee, travelling alone is kind of nice" before the news announcer tells me that "a woman alone in her car was killed by a large block of stone crashing through her front windshield this morning and route 55 is now closed."
Eeep. :eek:
After a lot of phoning I decided to drive the "long way", which in fjord country means a three hour drive. Right before I left the project manager phoned to tell me he'd managed to arrange a boat to pick me up. And while waiting, boat guy phones me to tell me the road has opened early.
Which was a good thing of course, but still - driving through a fresh rockfall, with helicopters and geologists buzzing around where a woman recently died... was a sobering experience.
Anyway. That was my "commute" today."