Our helmets are equipped with microphones so we can communicate without yelling at one another. Since it was Sunday, I was singing hymns to Cliff as we rode along. "How Great Thou Art", "Thank You, Lord, For Your Blessings On Me", and probably a dozen others.
Although my seat is elevated slightly more than Cliff's, I really can't see over his head. If I want to watch the road, I usually look to one side of his helmeted head.
However, I was so wrapped up with my singing that I was paying no attention to the road ahead. Until I felt Cliff suddenly brake. I peered around his head to see a tractor-trailer rig heading toward us, with a car trying to pass him, not very successfully. She was in our lane approaching us rapidly.
The lady driver pulled in so close to the front of the truck, I don't know how she kept from scraping his bumper. We heard the trucker apply his jake-brakes.
There would have been some options if the lady hadn't made it into her lane; Cliff could have pulled onto the narrow right-hand shoulder of the highway, perhaps... that little four-foot stretch of pavement on the other side of those wake-up bumps.
It was indeed a close call. I'm very thankful it was nothing more than that. And I'm thankful for a skilled, alert trucker who single-handedly prevented a wreck that could have injured or killed us.
If that had happened, we wouldn't have been able to meet up with Cliff's cousins.
And that would have been a real shame. The only time the people in this group see one another seems to be at funerals, which get more and more frequent.And if that lady passing the truck had hit us, the next funeral might have been ours.
