I’m in hotel in Whitehorse, with the couple I’ve been traveling with and a new ride, a young man from Colorado, he’s got a job on the pipeline, was driving to Anchorage straight from seattle without sleep, almost didn’t stop at all until we told him we’d spring for this hotel room. He was shooting those things that truckers drink, smell like orange and have 25 zillion pounds of B12 in them, come in little plastic bottles, shivering in his shirt sleeves. Sleep, we said. Sleep.
He picked us up today after our craigslist ride from Seattle rolled in the snow bank. We’d been waiting for it to happen, both Meadow and I, could’ve called it a premonition but really it was just plain physics. Ever since BC, the roads coated in ice, temperatures below zero, and our driver, Asaf, speeding eighty down the narrow stretch of gleaming white road, no traffic anywhere but the occasion truck blowing past, spraying bits of gravel, and Asaf holding his camera out at the windshield, click, click, not looking at the road, weaving back and forth towards one cold bank and then the other, always the camera, always pushing the speedometer a little farther. Yesterday I sat up front and all day I waited for it, told him to slow down, told him to stop taking pictures, shouted at him, really, and he didn’t listen, didn’t even acknowledge me, shook his head over the view and took another couple pictures, didn’t give a fuck about our safety.
A little about Asaf- he’s a millionaire, worked in the film and music industry for twenty years, Keanu Reeves calls him on his birthday. He’s moving to Alaska because he wants to be Sarah Palin’s advisor.
And then today I waited again, in the backseat, it was Barry’s turn to sit up front, listen to Asaf’s bullshit. Barry tried to regulate but Asaf didn’t hear it, didn’t listen to a thing we said. The roads were snowier today. At one point I tried to take a nap, curled up in the very back seat of the giant SUV, thing went on and on like a bus. But I couldn’t sleep, I was just too nervous with the belt tight across my legs, head on my coat for a pillow, waiting for it. Meadow tried to nap but couldn’t either. And then, while I was eating a can of beans, it happened. Asaf took a picture of a frozen lake and hit a snowbank going sixty, lost control, slid across the highway and into the snowbank opposite. The can of beans flew from my hand and splattered all over my face, hair, the fabric roof of the car as the car rolled upside down, the trailer stuck like an anchor in the deep snow and the vehicle righted itself, pulled to a dull stop. Barry had been in the back with Meadow, punched out the side window with the top of his head, but swore he was fine. No-one else was hurt. Asaf jumped out, ran to his trailer. His things had spilled out, were lying in the clean white snow bank- a cheap office chair, a broken lamp. MY STUFF! He cried. My things! Oh no, oh no! He didn’t even once ask us how we were, if we were hurt. It was ten degrees below zero, we were in the middle of some stretch of desolate nothing between Fort Nelson and Whitehorse.
Fuck that guy.
We left him and his busted trailer, waved down a car and got this ride to Whitehorse. We’re in a nice hotel room. I ate an orange. Everything is fine.
I’m going to write a longer story about this later, when I get to Alaska. That shit was scary. Meadow and I are going to make T-shirts-
We’re from Alaska and we think you should slow the fuck down.
CARROT QUINN 
Damn…. Glad to hear that you are safe! That guy sounds like a dip shit!
Ill be looking forward to your longer story.
Wow, that gave me goosebumps! Be safe. It sounds like you’re with some good people now.
Ahhhh! I’m so glad you are okay! I felt like I was right there with you in that car. I had a similar experience while hitchhiking… SCARY!
Holy Shit!
Wow! i’m glad that everyone is OK….did Asaf call Keanu to matrix him out of the drift? Best wishes for a safe trip and sane drivers from now on.
Widerstand- he was! people who drive like that when they have carloads of people are always dipshits in my book, free hotel room or not.
Libby- thanks! no more car accidents for me.
Rebekah- you got in a car accident too? God that is so fucked up. Why are the most reckless drivers always the ones who pick you up?!
Sloth- I know! You can say that again! I still can’t believe it!
Fenu- No, Asaf called 1-800-i’mloaded to get a tow truck to tow him the last 250 miles to whitehorse and then get his insurance to buy him a new car and trailer.
I got goosebumps too! I’m glad you’re here to tell the tale.
o.O! Whoa! Very glad you’re now safe, warm, and unhurt. 🙂
I’d say that guy proves that the only difference between eccentricity and insanity is money, eh?
You’re a lucky woman! Not because you were involved – but because you get to be the one to laugh (and write to the world) about it later. *grinz*
And I would so totally splurge for the shirt, too, lol.
That’s fucked up. Glad you’re ok.
So this guy is semi-famous, or wants to be? Did you get his last name? If so, please post it and tell the internet what a world class douche he is. If he does ever get a job advising Sarah Palin, this story would eventually come out into the media.
Shit! This could be your big break!
step 1: Political opponents google every name on Palin’s team during the next election to dredge up shit for negative ads
2. They find out one of her advisors almost killed some people and didn’t care
3. Carrot Quinn gets interview requests from every media outlet to talk about her horrifying ordeal with the evil Palin advisor and gets her 15 minutes of election-hysteria fame, like fuckin Joe The Plumber!
4. ?????
5. Profit!
Holy Metaphor! I just realized that your brush with disaster is a perfect reinactment of what the whole world is going through: rich, arrogant asshat pursuing greedy dream of personal aggrandisement recklessly endangers a the whole society by running the engine of economic progress into the ditch, and is then bailed out by insurance (funded by taxpayers) whilst leaving said taxpayers out-in-the-cold. The stuff in his trailer could even represent the options market, which is ‘upside down’. I hope SP hires him, they appear to be made for each other.
“We’re from Alaska and we think you should slow the fuck down.”
hahaha, i love you, carrot!
haha fenu. You are so right!
holy s hit. well i’m glad you made it out alive. i just kept thinking, oh no, bean cans are sharp i hope this story doesnt end with krot getting stabbed in the face by a can of beans!
Matsya- thanks! me too!
Greencaller- I am so lucky, it’s true!
Eric- I dunno about that. He was a nice guy, in a lot of ways. And I don’t really think he stands a chance of getting a job as Sarah Palin’s advisor. Unless he’s smarter than he appeared to us.
Fenu- a metaphor, yes! I was thinking of a different one- we all knew the accident was coming, and we sort of asked Asaf to slow down, but not in any way that would be considered “rude”, or really challenge our place as riders and his place as driver, or that might break up the tense harmony in our car and leave us out in the cold- in a way, although we knew it was coming, we felt we were powerless to stop it, although we could’ve risen up to save our own lives (not that we were hurt)- we could’ve thrown the camera out the window, for example, or hidden it. But we just waited, instead, for the crash.
sequoia- thanks, friend!
click clack- death by bean can would have been so tragic!