"Death ride" to Red Wing?


It should be a nice night to take a drive, I thought.

We election judges had just finished packing up the results from the primary. There wasn't much competition among the candidates, so the turn-out in our township was pretty light. We only had about 38 ballots to deliver to the county seat about 25 miles away. But we value the ballots.

The rules state we had to have two judges bring the ballots to the courthouse. So the head judge and I started out.

I was driving our little Prius, in which I love to cruise along. It went well for a few miles until we hit the east side of Cannon Falls on Highway 19. It was newly paved and tarred and would be beautiful in the daytime.

But now it was night... and they hadn't yet put the markings on the road indicating where the center and sides were. I ended up just trying to see the grass marking the edge of the road.

That was partly because of the fog. It rose from the road and blocked my vision. And sometimes it rained, which brought blinding reflection from the headlights.

I had really slowed down because at times I couldn't see where the road was turning. This area is filled with hills and valleys. And what about deer crossing?

I thought...can't find a place to pull off the road...what if there's another car coming up behind us... they can't see us... and on and on.

You could tell both my passenger and I were pretty scared because neither one of us was talking!

And that might have led to another problem.

When you talk you have to breathe. And I don't know if I took more than two breaths on that whole stretch of road!

When I got to the courthouse I got out of the car and sat on a bench and closed my eyes and breathed. When I felt stronger I walked back to my car and called my husband. I said, this is really strange.

He knows that I have driven with him through many hours of rain and darkness and didn't feel like this! So he kept me talking on the phone so I would breathe!

I explained that I would be taking Highways 61 to 20 home. It's longer but it's on higher ground and shouldn't be so foggy and the road has markings on it.

Sure enough...we did just fine.

After I dropped off my passenger I felt even better! I was more concerned about her safety.

A couple of weeks later at a town board meeting, the township treasurer came over to me with a questioning look on her face and asked if I had filled out the form for compensation for my mileage? I hadn't. But someone had. And I chuckled when I read what someone had written on the form: "Death Ride to Red Wing!"

Someone else knew how it felt!


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