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Highway Horror

We were on our way back to college after a fun weekend trip to a friends home. The windows were down to allow at least the breeze in since it was scorching hot outside and this car had no air-conditioning, in fact, we were lucky it ran at all. And with the windows down, we actually had a nice cross breeze with the holes in the floor board.We were singing to whatever song we could find on the stations in the middle of Kansas on some little mostly unknown highway.

It was the quickest route between Manhattan and Wichita. There are many things in life to fear and many things to fear in the flat lands. I had been in Wichita on two separate occasions when there were tornadoes, but this threat was even worse.

On a long stretch of quiet highway we enjoyed the beautiful sights of the pastures and sky. There were several tractors working in the fields and mowing in the ditches. Up ahead of us, there was something covering the entire road for as far as we could see. As we neared, it looked as if all the grass from the ditches has been thrown onto the highway. I glanced into the rear view mirror and could see the blades floating into the air as my 82' chevette cruised through at it's top speed of 45 mph. Any faster and it would shimmy so badly it was uncontrollable. As I glanced in the mirror again, my delight turned to curiosity with the way the leaves were tumbling through the current. Then even more strange was the way the blades were rising in the still air in front of the car before we even got to them. Then my curiosity turned to terror as suddenly one of the "blades" landed on the windshield. It was then that we realized it was too late to turn back that we were in the middle of a swarm of large grasshoppers.

I started screaming, trying desperately to roll up the window that had lost the rotating end to grasp ahold of. "COVER THE FLOOR HOLES!" My arms were literally shaking and my knuckles turned white as I held tightly to the wheel. Soon enough we were on open clean road again. Both of us sweating. The sound of pure silence. Then as we look at each other, I was able to start laughing at our life threatening event was now over. I rolled down the window again. My dear friend in all her wisdom asked me to pull over that she needed to get out for a second. When we stopped she open the hatchback to free about 20 grasshoppers that unknowingly to me, had joined us. I hate to think what would have happened it one would have jumped on me. After all, my dad had placed a bumper on the riding lawnmower when I was young after I had a couple of accidents like running into trees, cars, etc., in pursuit of trying to get them off me or abandoning the mower all together while it was going.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh my goodness! You really are afraid of grasshoppers!
Anonymous said…
Hi Suzanne,
I came over from Ann's space. I loved your space the moment I arrived! Live, Laugh, Love...it's one of my favorites.
The pictures of your family are beautiful. I had to smile when I read your profile. We have four little ones at home ages 7 down to 15 months. Our oldest three children are grown up and away.
I am fascinated with the prospect of homeschooling and am checking out the possibilities for next year.
Come and visit me some time.

My mother grew up near Fredonia, Kansas and was number 11 of 12 children. My cousin homeschooled her 8 children plus did DayCare. All the kids are very bright and talented musically. Her oldest got a full scholarship to college. Another inspiring story!

BTW, I'm not too crazy about grasshoppers jumping on me either!!
Happy Mother's Day...
Anonymous said…
Oh how crazy that must have been, but I couldn't help laughing! I would have freaked!

Have a good weekend!
God bless :)
Heart of Rachel said…
Hi Suzanne. First of all, thanks for visiting me earlier. HaloScan is having some repairs done so my comment link is not working. Glad you dropped some lines on my chatbox.

I just read your post and I could imagine how scary the situation was. I'm not at all fond of grasshoppers and I would have been terrified to see a swarm of them. Glad that nobody got hurt.

Take care!
Heart of Rachel said…
BTW,I forgot to add that I also remember seeing a similar stacking doll on sesame street. Good memory.
Jackie Sue said…
Thanks for visiting my blog; I love all your photos! :)
Jacy said…
Bless your heart, I think I would have gone a little crazy too! lol It was so good to get a visit from you over at spaces...when I was a little girl we use to get locus' every seven years and the noise would drive me crazy lol.
May you have a wonderful blessed day and happy mother's Day!!!
Hope to visit again soon
Jacy
Anonymous said…
thanks for coming by to visit. happy mother's day. okay, i read your 101 and was laughing like crazy at the one that mentioned your hubby understand your child-birth pain because he stepped on a nail! my husband looked at me when they said i was ready to push and said, "boy..that was easy!"...for him maybe! i also loved your fear of IVs that lead you to never have an epidural...I too am more afraid of a needle getting stuck in my spine than giving birth...so no epidurals for me!
Anonymous said…
Hey Suzanne... Thanks so much for stopping by. Scared of grasshoppers eh? Bugs don't bother me, but birds..... eeeehhhhh... They make my skin crawl. I'll be back, your blog seems funny!
Anonymous said…
My blog site never shows up:

www.letmylifesongsing.wordpress.com
Anonymous said…
My blog site never shows up:

www.letmylifesongsing.wordpress.com
Anonymous said…
Hi Suzanne, thanks for stopping by. If I were you I'd call about the book. Casually say, hey.. remember the book I borrowed to you... I was wondering if I could get it back from you? That's what I'd do anyway, sometimes people put them on their shelves and simply forget about them??
Oh my goodness, I know how you feel about the grasshoppers, YIKES... that happened to me too, suddenly driving into a huge cloud of hoppers but luckily for us our windows were up and we had no holes in the floor... but oh wow, it's so creepy to see that many hoppers at one time. YUCK! And the sound that crunching sound while driving over them.. ICK!! I NEVER want to experience that again! I hope you had a great Mothers Day, and that you have a great Monday as well. Take care, -Sunflower-
Anonymous said…
Bahahah! This could have been me! I am deathly afraid of grasshoppers(crickets and frogs as well)!!
I wonder sometimes if I would have keeled over with fear if I had to live in the prairie days when swarms of grasshoppers wiped out peoples crops. I thought that only happened a hundred years ago!! Yikes.
Oh, and I had a Chevette too! :D I think mine was an '81 maybe. I remember how it sounded at top speed as you depressed the tiny little gas pedal. Ha! I called mine "Lurky" and my best friend had an identical one(both powder blue) named "Skeeter". Good times eh?
Anonymous said…
Suzanne, thanks for stopping by my site... it enabled me to come by yours!!! What a great writer you are, I got the creeps thinking about the grasshoppers and I am not even afraid of them.. Lilla
Anonymous said…
I get all squirmy around creepy crawly things. I'd be just as terrified as you.

LOL!I was reading your post below about holes in the wall and not putting our toys in it, Katelyn used to be a pack rat and stuff all her pacifiers down the small hole in the wall from not having a door stop. When my husband fixed it, we found all of her pacifiers that seemed to vanish.

Hope you had a Happy Mother's Day!
Full of Grace said…
I would have definately been "freaking out!" :) What a story, and even more importantly- what an experience!!!

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