Close Calls

I almost died the other day!  Ok, maybe I wouldn't have died, but it was scary.  I was on the freeway, and I needed to get over so I could exit.  So, I speed up a bit and fit in between two cars quite nicely.  But all of a sudden, the car in front of me, which is the only one I could see because of the slight hill, SLAMS on his brakes...on the highway!  Yeah.  Since I had just sped up to get in that lane, not only was I and the large suburban behind me going pretty fast, but there wasn't loads of room between us.  I and the suburban try to hit the brakes too,  but it is very apparent that neither of us are going to stop in time.  The suburban is about to blast my behind, and I was surely going to hit the car in front of me before stopping.  My heart started racing!  I look to the shoulder to try and avoid, but of course with the eternal construction in Utah, there is no shoulder.  I look to the lane on my left and see the car that was beside me pass just in time for me to swerve out and pass the stopped cars.  The suburban swerved a little toward the shoulder and stopped just in time before smashing the car that had been in front of me.  I was almost smashed like a pancake. I think I spent the rest of my time on the way to work thanking God that we had avoided the accident!  Apparently some car had blasted a tire, and without a shoulder had stopped in the right lane, just over the hill.  Crazy!
It reminds me of my mission.  Texas roads are kinda crazy because they always have traffic, and a lot of trash on the highway.  One day, I was driving four other missionaries back from a service day in downtown Houston.  The traffic was horrendous--about bumper to bumper with cars on all sides.  It finally sped up to about 45 or 50 miles an hour, but it was still really close traffic and I was generally surrounded by cars.  All of a sudden I saw the two cars in front of me swerve like crazy.  I look to my side to see if there is any space, and blessing from heaven, for the first time in 45 minutes I didn't have a car on my side.  The car in front of me swerved to reveal a HUGE log going across my lane.  At the speed we were going, and with the traffic, I think I had about 3 seconds or less to react before we smashed into it, and probably would have flipped or crushed.  I swerved out of the way just in time and barely missed it.  Everyone in the car wasn't paying attention and got all upset that I drove so crazy, except one Elder who had seen everything and told them to be quiet because I just saved their lives, ha.  God was watching out for us.  Driving can be pretty crazy sometimes!