Further Adventures Of... The Final Chapter

Here's two little tid-bits about me. I'm scared of heights. And I recently drove our Toyota Camry up Mt. Washington, the tallest mountain in the Northeastern USA.

I'm certainly not the first. We've all seen those bumper stickers: This Car Climbed Mt. Washington. (because they give one to every car that goes up). It wasn't the first time I've been in a car that has driven to the summit (my third, actually).

But it was the first time I've driven a car up it myself. And I don't think I'll be doing it again. Ever.

I'll be the first, and usually am, to comment about how modern life is too sanitized, how we're too protected from ourselves. But as I drove up the hill with the worst weather on earth (the world-record highest wind speed of 231 mph was recorded here), there were no guardrails, only a yawning abyss---and that was on the side AWAY from the big drop. I didn't even dare to look at that side. Just keep my eyes on the yellow line and keep moving. Don't think about our whole family tumbling to our deaths. Don't think at all. Just keep moving forward. And certainly don't think about the fact that then you'll be imprisoned on the top of an island of height that would surely require a much more nail-biting descent. Flow state. Don't think, just drive...

The pictures show you most of what we did on the top (other than freeze. The wind was 55 mph that day, and I didn't catch the temperature, but wearing a flannel shirt and a t-shirt, I was cold enough to put on a long-sleeved base-layer underneath... and even then I wasn't very warm. It was about 85 degrees F
at the base of the mountain.

It turned out that going down was much better, oddly enough. We waited until the road had closed to cars coming up (not on purpose as much as it just worked out that way, but I was certainly aware of the fact before we headed down) and as per instructions, put the car in its lowest gear. So I drove down the center/left lane all the way down, and honestly didn't even use the brakes as much as usual.

Then we started the endless drive in the dark that was our trip home. An entirely different sort of looking into the abyss. But that's a story for another time.