Wind-wipers and Other Travelling Miracles

Have you ever wondered why they call them wind-wipers? It's not like you are wiping the wind with them ... should be called rain-wipers or water-wipers or liquid-wipers or some-thing-more-accurate-wipers.

The Wind-Wipers Story; 
I left BHHEC under a fairly clear sky, no immanent or threatening clouds to be seen. (Lydia I didn't get your weather warning until it was way too late!) 10 minutes down the road, once I was on the main road to Rapid City travelling at about 65 miles per hour, the clouds became both threatening and immanent, and then the sky fell on my head. One second there was no rain just some big grumbly clouds, the next rain so heavy I might as well have driven into a waterfall. Couldn't see a thing and the windwipers were NO help at all. Lydia had warned me that they did not work well, turns out that they were VERY intermittant. About once every 5 seconds they skipped across the windscreen missing most of the rain in their progress. Luckily there was no cars directly in front of me because looking through that windscreen was worse than when I have misplaced my glasses and am trying to find them in the haze.

I quickly realised that I was not going to be able to continue with the current state of affairs and prayed, reminding God that He had promised to supply all my needs and that right at that instant I needed to be able to see! And nothing changed. By this time I had slowed down to about 35 miles an hour but I was worried that someone coming up behind me would hit me, and I was worried that not being able to see I would run up the back of something else. So I pointed the car and what looked like it might be a clear green patch of road edge, hit the breaks, prayed, closed my eyes (I know, dumb, but I was a bit stressed) and pulled off the road. I came to a bumpy stop in what turned out to be a clear green patch so I didn't hit anything. I ended up a couple of meters off the road, and just as the engine stopped the wind-wipers sprang to life, rapidly traversing the windscreen in an orderly fashion, sweeping the rain from their path in efficient strokes.

I waited a few minutes to check that this would continue - and to settle my nerves - then I gingerly pulled back onto the highway and kept on with my journey. The wind-wipers worked perfectly as long as the rain continued, just as the rain slowed to a spatter the wind-wipers resumed their intermittent skipping action and within a minute the rain was entirely gone.

It did not resume until later that evening when I was just out of Buffelo next to a beautiful lake called De Smitt Lake, I passed a sign for a hotel on the edge of the lake, and then an accident with lots of flashing lights on the other side of the road, and then the rain came. This time God did not make the wind-wipers work, but i was the only car on the road so I slowed to a crawl went off the next off ramp and turned back to the hotel - which was only 1 mile away. Spent a comfortable night and had breakfast to the accompaniment of a very pleasant view.

The Hotel where I stayed, the dark blue ute type vehicle is what I was driving.

Some of the view at breakfast.













Deer:
I had been warned by many people to keep my eyes open for deer and sheep that were apparently liable to commit suicide by jumping out in front of luckless cars without warning at any given moment. I only saw one pair of deer and one stood motionless on the edge of the road and watched me drive by, the other ran away. Apparently that day was not a good day to die.

Other Drivers:
Thanks for all your prayers for safe driving, once I got off the freeway and onto a road that was not divided a car crossed the center line and was coming straight for me, I saw them coming and was able to take evasive actions and they managed to correct themselves before any damage was done.

Driving On The Wrong Side Of The Road:
I only ended up on the wrong side of the road three times! Once was in a car park so I don't think that really counts. The second time was on a back country road when I was trying to get back on the freeway after stopping to get Subway for tea, but there were no other cars on the road to witness my misdemeanor so I'm not sure that actually counts. Kind of like the tree falling in the forest scenario - if there is no one to witness the fall from grace ... did it really happen?? The third time was in a town, I turned into the wrong lane at an intersection, the occupants of an oncoming car pointed and waved wildly accompanied by looks of abject horror, this clued me into the fact that there was a problem. Which I immediately corrected. Apart from that everything was fine.


Big thanks for all the prayers about my safe driving and Praise God for keeping me safe!!