Horror movie

So yesterday we drove up to the Mendocino area to attend Chris and Angela's wedding.

The drive up was quite enjoyable; the road up to Russian Gulch state park, the site of the ceremony, has an 80 mile or so section of reasonably well-paved, twisty mountain path, exactly the kind where driving an AMG car is rather enjoyable even if your speed never exceeds 80, even that only in very short bursts, and where a turn taken at 40 MPH can be quite exciting. Stopping at Boonville for gas we then essentially had to pass everyone we passed on the way to Boonville again, and I'm sure some of them are still irritated with me. Sorry guys. Try driving my car and you'll understand.

Anyhoo, the wedding reception took place in the Caspar community center and was fabulous, a truly memorable and enjoyable experience, and we got to meet some really awesome people and hopefully new friends (hello, Peter and Amy). However, since we had lost our babysitter for Sunday morning, we had to drive back at night, and so at around 10:30 we said our goodbyes and got on the road.

So as we're driving back, slower this time because of the complete darkness and my total unfamliarity with the narrow road, this pickup truck roared by us. I was quite happy for that, because now I had a leader who was also quite fast; by following them I could see the curves that the road was taking well in advance and plan my driving a lot better. I became a bit less tense, and my wife and I were enjoying a good conversation.

About 10 miles into the affair, the pickup suddenly slows down dramatically and moves to the side, as if to allow us to pass. I was a bit surprised, since they were driving very fast before then - in fact, we had made the comment that the guy was a pretty good driver to drive a pickup so fast in this road, even if he so obviously knew the twists and turns very well.

However, there was nothing to do but pass.

Then it happened.

As soon as we got through, the guy in the pickup turns up his brights and starts tailing us at at about a car's length apart. He had those really strong halogens too, and in the complete darkness around us and the comparative heights of the cars they ended up shining right into our driver's compartment like spotlights. This was scary. It was also blinding; it made it quite difficult for me to see ahead unless I turned my own brights on, potentially endangering all of us considering the many blind hairpin turns and the people coming towards us ocassionally, and even then visibility was diminished.

So I sped up a bit trying to shake him. Alas, the combination of reduced visibility and lack of familiarity with the road served to make it very difficult to do so, as he was able to repeatedly make up any gap I opened in the twists on the straightaway, where I was afraid to punch it not knowing what to expect on the next turn. At one point in frustration I did just that only to be handed a blind 140 degree turn with a late apex that I tried taking at 60 MPH; thankfully the DSP in the mercedes functions well.

We were too afraid of trying to let him pass, either. His aggressive approach was really scary, and he kept getitng very close to ramming us. We didn't know whether he was mad about something, or maybe just a psycho, but if we moved to one of the small side areas designed for slower vehicles to let faster ones overtake them, we had literally nowhere to go if he decided to just stop next to us. What if he had a shotgun in that truck? scenes from movies like Deliverance went through our heads.

There was also no cell reception, so 911 was not a possibility. I was praying that a cop would wonder around and see the mad driving, and just stop us to give us a ticket. No such luck, of course.

Then - about 15 gut-wrenching minutes into this insanity - we saw salvation in the form of a turnout, a few hundred feet of divided lanes designed for passing. We moved into the right lane, ready to bolt ahead if he started slowing down too. At least in the turnout we had some room to maneuver. I looked anxiously at my rearview mirror.

He seemed to hesitate for a long second, then punched through and roared right by us. We started again, slowly, but picked up some speed back to our comfortable pace from before, when a couple minutes later we hit upon him again. By then I had theorized that he was trying to play "follow the leader"; at least it was a plausible theory and that calmed us down some. We were still nervous, and then he did the whole slowing down letting us pass thing again, and as we did... he sped up with his brights.

Goddammit, what was wrong with this guy?!

This time I wasn't going to take it anymore. I punched it. I treated the rest of the way to and through Boonville as a race track, going as fast as I dared, knowing full well that no matter how good he was and how well he knew the road, he couldn't keep up if I did so. It was dangerous, much more dangerous than I care to admit. But we did shake him, although he kept trying to catch up as we noted looking back for his lights once we opened a sufficient gap between us. Once we hit Boonville we lost him completely, but we were still nervous; I ended up driving the rest of the way to US-101 faster than I would have normally, and we made it to the 101/128 intersection, I stopped the car and got out for a breath of fresh air. I felt I was about to throw up.

My trip computer cheerfully noted that my average MPG for the trip down from Caspar was 16.6. Considering the trip to Caspar had us at over 23 MPG for the same road, that should tell you something about how I was pushing the car. After that, going down 101 at 72 MPH on the cruise control was an unexpected joy. We made it home before 1AM, which was way, way too early considering when we departed.