Just found this thread, some crazy memorable drives:
- Most Memorable, driving down the California Coast from SF to LA with my wife when we were first married. We did it over parts of 3 days (yes, you could probably do it in one, but we wanted the scenic route). We started out mid-afternoon from SF, stayed in Carmel on Night 1 - which was beautiful. We then drove to Hearst Castle on Day 2, and spent the night in Santa Barbara. We didn't stay anywhere fancy on either night, and we brought our own food, but it was still fun and memorable nonetheless, and the centerpiece of a 10-day California road trip. Hard to believe it was almost 9 years ago
- Craziest drive #1 - in Israel, in 1993. Over bein hazmanim. I went to work on a farm in Gush Katif in Gaza for a week. I wasn't on one of those pre-arranged programs - but rather, my Uncle found someone who needed extra labor to harvest vegetables from his greenhouses before pesach, and I volunteered. I went down by bus. Of course, being a clueless yeshiva bochur, I didn't even bother to check the bus schedules, all I knew is that I had to take a bus to Ashkelon and switch there. I got to Ashkelon at about 10:15, only to find out that there were 3 buses a day to Gush Katif - 10:00, 14:00, and 17:00 - because I missed the bus by 15 minutes, i had to hang out for 4 hours. Someone mistook me for one of the mista'arvim (i.e. the unit fauda is based on) - despite my lousy hebrew and repeated denials. When I got on the bus, of the 60 people on it with me, no less than 50 were soldiers going to various bases in the Gaza area. For the first few minutes, I felt kind of safe. Then we crossed the border into Gaza, and almost simultaneously, all of the soldiers locked and loaded their various weapons. I totally freaked out and hit the floor, thinking we were under attack. A teenage girl told me it was okay to get off the floor, some of the soldiers laughed at the crazy american. they also explained to me that they are required to lock and load the minute they cross over the green line. B"H, I made it fine to my hosts - albeit 4-5 hours later than I thought. It was a crazy, poignant and memorable week.
- Craziest Drive #2 - last march (2018) in a wild windstorm on Friday. My wife and I work about 5 miles from each other, and about 30-35 minutes from home. There was a crazy rain and windstorm on Friday afternoon, and shabbos was due to start about 5pm. Normally, I'd leave about 2:30, but because of the weather, we both decided to leave earlier - about 1:45. Looking at traffic, and with the highway we normally took being backed up, both of us decided to use a different highway that seemed to be moving faster. Unfortunately while we were on the highway, a tree fell across the entire highway, blocking all lanes (unfortunately killing one person - thankfully no more). We were both stuck between two exits, so we literally sat on the highway for an hour. When I finally got off the highway, I used waze to navigate around the effected parts of that highway. It was terrible - every second turn was blocked by a tree. I kept pushing through, knowing I had to get home, and it was getting perilously close to shabbos. At one-point I made a turn on a street that led to a one-lane bridge that crossed a small lake. I looked up and realized that I was driving under a partially fallen tree that was being held up by power lines. (I called it into the police as I crossed the bridge). B"H - passed that one too, and finally made it back on the highway - which was practically empty because people were avoiding it because of the aforementioned accident. I got off the highway with about 20 minutes to licht bentching (mind you, I had been driving for nearly 2 hours on a trip that normally takes 35 minutes). I was in great shape, because it was only 5 minutes from home - or so I thought - several of the local streets were closed because of fallen trees - it took me nearly the whole 20 minutes to get to my house, but thank g-d I made it, and so did my wife (she was able to get back to the first highway and sat in that traffic - which was quicker than my ordeal).
