I occasionally dream of nuns in trouble, with a happy ending. #lonesomehighway
Okay
True story. Mostly.
Years ago I was driving a long trip from the east coast to the west. I was on a lonesome highway through the southwest. Summertime, brutally hot. The road was shimmering in the distance.
The highway had emergency call boxes every mile, painted yellow with signage in between noting there was an emergency phone in a half mile. You could see the phones with their emergency sign poles on top all the way to the horizon.
As I drove on I noticed a vehicle in the distance behind me. I forgot about it for a long while as I headed on. Then a semi hauler was closing fast in the rear view. It blew by my car like my car was standing still. After steading my car from the buffeting the truck gave me I looked down at the speedometer, I was at 85 mph.
My friend in the passenger seat woke up and thought we’d been hit. Before I could say anything two highway cruisers blew past us, bubble gum lights on, no sirens.
We watched as the cruisers caught and then passed the truck. We saw no break lights on the truck. All three vehicles were out of sight over the horizon.
My friend went back to sleep after very little conversation. It was probably the fastest I’ve ever seen vehicles go on a public road.
Later, I could see smoke on the horizon. I woke up my friend and we discussed what we might see up ahead.
At the “Emergency Phone 1/2 mile” sign we could see a yellow school bus (no markings, just a yellow dog school bus) with smoke coming out of the rear. The truck that blew past us earlier was there in front of the bus. As we closed we could see the two cruisers between the bus and truck. There smoke coming of the back left wheel well of the bus, and some small fire extinguishers laying on their sides on the shoulder. We had slowed and a highway patrolmen was waving us to go on, like, “What’s someone in a Datsun 210 going to do to help?”
As we drove past there were a bunch of nuns standing around holding up what we they had to get shade. There were some nuns sitting in the patrol cars.
We discussed that for a while. My friend got the map out and figured we were about an hour from our planned stop at a now somewhat famous truck stop area with a motel.
As we got back up to speed a couple of fire/rescue vehicles drove towards and past us. As we closed on town a school bus with markings on it and a sheriff’s car were heading east to what we assumed was the scene we’d passed.
We checked into the motel and walked over to gas the cafe. We made up plenty of scenarios of what might be going on with a bus load of nuns in the middle of nowhere.
We went back to the hotel and I went to fuel up the car and my friend showered.
In the lobby of the motel there were a lot of hot, literally and figuratively nuns in the lobby. Though they were in white and light blue garb they were all sweaty from being out in the sun and then riding in a bus without air conditioning. They were mostly young ( I was too) seemed to be trainees. Two older ones were talking to the clerks. Some had taken off their headgear scarfs and all most were quite attractive. I stopped to talk to some of the nuns who were smoking. They were going on a mission to California. We then … wait, you thought this was going to end in a nun orgy, didn’t you? Perv!
The happy ending was their bus could be fixed and they were safe.
True story. Mostly.
Years ago I was driving a long trip from the east coast to the west. I was on a lonesome highway through the southwest. Summertime, brutally hot. The road was shimmering in the distance.
The highway had emergency call boxes every mile, painted yellow with signage in between noting there was an emergency phone in a half mile. You could see the phones with their emergency sign poles on top all the way to the horizon.
As I drove on I noticed a vehicle in the distance behind me. I forgot about it for a long while as I headed on. Then a semi hauler was closing fast in the rear view. It blew by my car like my car was standing still. After steading my car from the buffeting the truck gave me I looked down at the speedometer, I was at 85 mph.
My friend in the passenger seat woke up and thought we’d been hit. Before I could say anything two highway cruisers blew past us, bubble gum lights on, no sirens.
We watched as the cruisers caught and then passed the truck. We saw no break lights on the truck. All three vehicles were out of sight over the horizon.
My friend went back to sleep after very little conversation. It was probably the fastest I’ve ever seen vehicles go on a public road.
Later, I could see smoke on the horizon. I woke up my friend and we discussed what we might see up ahead.
At the “Emergency Phone 1/2 mile” sign we could see a yellow school bus (no markings, just a yellow dog school bus) with smoke coming out of the rear. The truck that blew past us earlier was there in front of the bus. As we closed we could see the two cruisers between the bus and truck. There smoke coming of the back left wheel well of the bus, and some small fire extinguishers laying on their sides on the shoulder. We had slowed and a highway patrolmen was waving us to go on, like, “What’s someone in a Datsun 210 going to do to help?”
As we drove past there were a bunch of nuns standing around holding up what we they had to get shade. There were some nuns sitting in the patrol cars.
We discussed that for a while. My friend got the map out and figured we were about an hour from our planned stop at a now somewhat famous truck stop area with a motel.
As we got back up to speed a couple of fire/rescue vehicles drove towards and past us. As we closed on town a school bus with markings on it and a sheriff’s car were heading east to what we assumed was the scene we’d passed.
We checked into the motel and walked over to gas the cafe. We made up plenty of scenarios of what might be going on with a bus load of nuns in the middle of nowhere.
We went back to the hotel and I went to fuel up the car and my friend showered.
In the lobby of the motel there were a lot of hot, literally and figuratively nuns in the lobby. Though they were in white and light blue garb they were all sweaty from being out in the sun and then riding in a bus without air conditioning. They were mostly young ( I was too) seemed to be trainees. Two older ones were talking to the clerks. Some had taken off their headgear scarfs and all most were quite attractive. I stopped to talk to some of the nuns who were smoking. They were going on a mission to California. We then … wait, you thought this was going to end in a nun orgy, didn’t you? Perv!
The happy ending was their bus could be fixed and they were safe.
61-69, M
