It was a gorgeous spring morning. The sky was a beautiful blue, the clouds were white, shimmery and fluffy. I left the house early this morning for my final post-op appointment with the eye doctors. On the drive home I was feeling very good. My appointment with the optometrist (who was quite friendly, as opposed to the ophthalmologist, who is the great stone face) went well. He said that I really didn't need new glasses, unless I wanted to change the prescription very slightly. I told him I was happy with what I have--so I don't need to spend money on new glasses.
Then I saw the ophthalmologist, who gave me the all clear. Don't need to use the eye drops any more and he doesn't need to see me again. He shook my hand and wished me a "good life" and told me to come back to see the optometrist next year.
I will follow his advice. I've been seeing the optometrist in Davis for many, many years and like him, but after this scare, where he gave me all the wrong information, I don't trust him any more and since I liked the guy in Sacramento, I'll switch to him in the future.
It was such a glorious spring day and the blossoms were out everywhere.
I hadn't had time for breakfast before I left home so, since this is Mardi Gras, and the tradition on "fat Tuesday" is to have pancakes, I stopped at a waffle house and had a waffle (a pancake with holes in it, right?) and then started on the road home.
To get from Sacramento to Davis, you cross the Yolo Causeway, that goes over the Yolo Bypass, where all the water from Folsom Dam goes if the level of the dam ever gets too high. It's a multi-purpose area that is a bird sanctuary, a rice paddy, and, when the standing water has dried, they sometimes plant crops like corn there. It's where we watched millions of bats flying off at night to search for bugs. As you come off the causeway, there is a little-used frontage road that I used to take frequently, but hadn't taken in a long time. It runs along between the highway and the railroad tracks and is a slower paced road than the freeway. This was a slower paced day, so I decided to take it again.
With the deteriorating infrastructure in California, the wear and tear on the frontage road was much more evident than the last time I drove it. It was patched all over the place, but I didn't see any big holes until I drove into one. As I bounced out of it, I heard the unmistakable, sickening sound of a flat tire.
I pulled over to check the tire and, sure enough, it was flat as a pancake (appropriate on Pancake Tuesday).
A car pulled up alongside me and a man with a hook on the end of his arm, instead of a hand, told me that he had hit that same pothole yesterday and it blew out both his front and back tires and that he had seen another car yesterday which had the same problem.
I called AAA (NOTE TO MY MOTHER: This is why you carry a cell phone!!) and just as I had finished talking with the dispatcher, a highway patrol car pulled up. I told the officer what happened and he drove off to check the pothole. Then another highway patrol car pulled up behind me to sit there until the AAA truck arrived. Fortunately, I had a book with me, so after I'd taken photos and made a video (of course!), I sat in the car and read until the AAA truck pulled up. The guy jumped out saying "You hit the pothole, eh? You're my second car today."
By the time he was fixing the tire, I had the AAA truck parked in front of me and both Highway Patrol cars parked behind me.
One AAA truck and 2 police cars just to take care of me!
I went to ask one of the Highway Patrol offcers whom I should call to file a report. He said that it was a county road, not a city road and that he had placed a report and that they would be out within the hour to patch the hole. He also explained that the road had been patched many times and when we had heavy rains, like we did this weekend, it seeped in under the patches and caused the potholes. He said that since I was driving the speed limit, I was more prone to being caught in the hole and that when he came along here he was usually driving too fast and so he didn't get caught, but he hastened to let me know that I should continue to drive the speed limit, not drive fast in the hope of avoiding pot holes.
All in all, it was kind of a nice little adventure. Walt had told me a couple of days ago that we were going to have to replace our front tires, so it's not like we suddenly have this unexpected expense. Neither I nor the car were damaged. I got to sit by the side of the road on a lovely day and do nothing but read...and, best of all, I can read now!
Coulda been worse. Life is good.
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