How I Almost Died and Why It Was Worth It

I looked death in the face today. Well, maybe not looked him directly in the face, but we definitely made eye contact.

Amanda and I made plans to hang out today, because she leaves in about 2 days to study for a whole semester in South Africa, and I wanted to see her before she left. So she was gonna drive down to Ventura, pick me up, drive back out to Santa Clarita so we could go to Buffalo Exchange, and then drive me back home and we would say our goodbyes, and then she would drive back to Santa Clarita. Well, these plans definitely went to shit. But in a very good way.

On the way to Ventura, Amanda somehow ended up on the I-5 towards San Francisco, instead of the 126 W towards Ventura. Not realizing this on the account of the bad weather making it difficult to see, she ended up in Gorman county, which is about and hour and a half northeast of Ventura. Now, the weather from Santa Clarita to Ventura was bad enough, but the weather to Gorman only got worse. It was snowing. Big fat chunks of snow falling from the sky. The sky was completely white. This was at about 2:30-3:00. At around that time, I got a call from her explaining just what had happened. Then she had a brilliant idea:

Why go to Buffalo Exchange when we could go play in the snow?

I was all for it. I hadn't seen the snow since I was about 6 years old [that's about 13 years now], and thought since it was so close, how easy it would be. God I'm a dumb southern Californian.

So Amanda picks me up around 4:30 or so, and it is raining torrents. It was dangerous driving around little ol' Ventura in this weather, and we were about to embark upon an hour and a half trip on 3 different highways, where the weather was only liable to get worse. But I didn't care for some reason. It felt right. It felt fine. I knew only good things could come out of this trip. So I got in the car, accepted my mortality, and then off we went.

For the first hour or so, it was all rain. Just pure, hard, fast rain. A bit slippery, but not too much to worry about. I made Amanda 3 Bob Dylan CD's of what I feel is his best work, and we popped the first one in. Like A Rolling Stone was the first track, and at that moment, I decided my number one goal is to make that song the story of my life, to actually live through that song, soak in all of its meaning. I think today was a good start.

When we'd passed Santa Clarita, things became a little more difficult. We kept looking at each other and laughing about how stupid we are, how dangerous this is, and reassured each other that if one of us at any point wanted to turn back, we would. We both decided to keep driving, but made up a 3 strike rule: if three extremely jolting and ultimately life-endangering things happened to us before we reached our destination, we would turn back IMMEDIATELY.

Strike 1: Just outside of Santa Clarita, the car made a loud noise and shifted a little. We almost hit a wall. We thanked Bob for being there for us, and kept driving.

We merged onto the I-5, which has a bit of an uphill slant to it. The rain started to get heavier, the winds stronger, and it got harder and harder to see. Our only guides were the tail lights in front of us. We couldn't differentiate lanes; we followed tire tracks. Still blasting Bob Dylan. I really think he was our guardian angel in this expedition.

So the rain eventually became hail, and the hail eventually became snow, and the snow eventually became CRAZY snow, and that was when we decided to pull over, but let me tell you, there is a huge difference between deciding to pull over and actually pulling over. We had to go about 8 miles or so past our limit before we could actually fulfill our decision. We were searching for signs, there were hardly any. Finally we saw a sign for Quail Lake Rd. At that point, anything looked good to us, so we took it. It could've said "Road to Hell" and we still would've taken it. But as we slid to the right to take the exit, we faced about 4 inches of snow that had piled up because NO ONE ELSE HAD TAKEN THIS EXIT. We knew once we pulled off it, there was no going back, and we would most likely be completely alone. We'd made it with 2 strikes to spare.

So we took the exit, and it was beautiful. Snow everywhere. There were a couple other people pulled over to the side of the road, but whether it had been their choice or not, I have no idea. We had come up here voluntarily. We intentionally put ourselves in danger. They could've been on the drive back from a camping trip or something. This could've been the worst part of their trip, where it was the entire REASON for ours. Goddam it, we're crazy.

It was ridiculously hard to see, but in the distance we could make out a couple of street lamps, so we headed over in their direction. We parked underneath the lights, and started to put on all of the warm clothing we had brought with us, which ultimately wouldn't do anything, but it was either that or nothing. We braced ourselves for the climate shock we were about to experience, and opened our car doors in unison.

It was...Beautiful. Snow was pouring from the empty black sky. Huge chunks of snow rested atop our heads and eyelashes and noses and shoulders. We skipped, we danced, we threw snowballs at each other. I busted out my camera and tried to catalog every moment, but failed tremendously. No picture could ever capture the beauty and freedom that poured out of each moment. We were completely alone, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded in freezing snow, wearing inappropriate clothing, and it was fantastic. I looked at Amanda who was off in the distance taking large steps through the snow, and then up at the black sky filled with white flakes, and vowed to let moments like these happen more often.


Amanda then ran to the car, stripped off her coat, and blasted All Along The Watchtower. We danced in the snow-covered street to the tunes of dear Bob for a few good minutes, me singing at the top of my lungs, her freezing to death but in a very freeing way. Everything about this trip had been good so far. Now we had to face the treacherous drive back.

I was scared out of my mind. My heart was in my throat the entire time, along with my lungs and my stomach and just about everything else from the neck down. We didn't dare look at each other as we warily scooted down the I-5 S. Old Bob was still whispering lyrics in the background, but even that couldn't comfort me. The traffic going the opposite way was completely stopped because of the weather. We were driving along large trucks, suburbans, all kinds of large cars that were built for this kind of weather. And here we were in our little Honda Civic, doing about 20 mph in the pitch black, with only the faint tail lights of the car ahead of us to lead us out of there. No signs. No lanes. No street lights. We had joked about it on the way up, but for the first moment on this trip, I actually thought I might not make it back. I honestly thought we would die on the way back. I didn't panic, though. I figured if that was what happened, then it was meant to be. And I don't think I would've accepted any other way to die at that point, to be honest. I think I would've been ok with it. I couldn't tell if Amanda was panicking or not, but if so, she hid it well. I trust her so much. There's not one other person in my world that would've done what we did today. And quite frankly, even if there was, I'd opt to be with her instead. For some reason, fear doesn't exist when I'm with her. Even when I thought we might die, I wasn't scared. Everything was still fine.

Eventually, we made it through the snow, though it wasn't an easy venture. And as soon as we got through the snow, we hit the same hard rain, which was almost worse. At one point Amanda turned to me and said, "Ya know, I keep trying to reassure myself that many other people have done more dangerous things and made it out ok...but I honestly can't think of anything." And it was true. Sure, it doesn't seem like the most dangerous thing, but once you actually do it, you realize just how INSANE it is. The fact that we did it voluntarily, too, only makes it more insane. But I kept saying to myself, "Jack Kerouac didn't become a hero because of all the safe things he did." I'm sure he was smiling down on us. Hell, I'm pretty sure he was sitting in the backseat.

Finally the rain started to let up, and we reached actual civilization, filled with streetlights and all. Even smaller cars started to appear next to us, and then we knew we'd be ok. We calmly drove back to Ventura, Mr. Zimmerman turned up full blast. We sang along with B Dyl, as relief started to pour over us, much like the snow we had just experienced. Everything was fine. Don't think twice, it's alright.

We got to my house right as the last Bob Dylan CD ended, and Amanda came inside and visited for a little bit. By this time, it had stopped raining, and it was about 7:30-8:00. We'd only been together for a few hours, but had accomplished more than some people have in their entire lives. It felt good. I felt strong. We started to discuss more in-depth our summer cross-country trip. We figured if we can survive that and still be able to stand each other, then really, there isn't anything we can't do.

It was getting late, and Amanda needed to head home. I walked her out to the car, we said our goodbyes, and then she drove off, waving emphatically. I waved emphatically back, and learned the true meaning of "going out with a bang." I'm not gonna see her for another 4 months, but this day...this day should last me till then. I'm gonna miss her a lot, but she'll be back. And then we'll have our whole lives to do ridiculous things.

Today was the best day of my life.