April 3rd, 2014

Describe Your Ultimate Escape Plan, and What You Are Escaping From

OK, we will try this again...

When I lived in Corrales for a few months, I read a lot of Dean Koontz - not having cable will do that to a girl. In his books, characters always had to escape whatever mad man was the 'bad guy' in the book. I started to wonder how I would react in those situations. Then I adapted the wondering to how I would escape the farm if I had to.

   

Nana and Papa lived on a farm in Corrales; the house was set back from the street by a 3 acre field. The dirt road that led to the house was alongside the pasture, and that was the only way to drive to the house. The back of the property was against the ditch. You could get to it on foot, but not by vehicle. At the end of the dirt road was the house with the garage attached, the large garage where Papa parked the farm truck and the tractor, there was a hay storage too. The dirt road had a turn around and there was a windmill in the middle of that turn around. It was not a big area, but enough to turn around if you had to.

My escape plan involved hearing the baddie approaching the house, I can't remember how now, but I think that it had something to do with the cows? Anyhow, my room was on the opposite side of the house from the garage, so I would hear the baddie near my room and I would sneak the garage, get in the Jeep and tear out down the dirt road to Corrales Road, then a left turn toward the city. This way, I could hide on the ditch bank too if I had to. If the baddie had accomplices or had parked in such a way that I could not get down the dirt road, I would tear through the pasture, I was in a Jeep after all.

Come to think of it, I did have to escape someone in Corrales a few times, in real life... There was one night that I was coming home from being at my mom's and it was already dark, and I was passed a truck, the driver waved, I waved back, that is how you do in Corrales, or at least that is how it used to be... Don't even get me started on that. Anyhow, he pulled a U turn just after that encounter. Odd, but OK? Since this was at the 'beginning' of Corrales he had plenty of time to pull off elsewhere, but he did not.  Now we were getting pretty close to where I would turn off to the farm. I have always been told that if you think that you are being followed, don't go home, go to a store, go to a neighbor, or go to the police station. I had already passed the police station, and it was already closed to boot. There are no businesses that were open at that time of night, until you get to the other end of Corrales, and there was no point of going to a neighbor, since most of them are set up the same way as the farm, set back from the street, and the dirt road you go down, is the only road to it, so I could have been easily blocked in.

               At this point in time cell phones were not prevalent like they are now, so I did not have one. I was not going to go home, but where? I had two small kids with me. I thought about driving to the other end of Corrales and stopping at the Shoppette there, but I would have to run in if I was really being followed, and what? Leave the girls in the Jeep? Nope. I knew that there was a corner coming up, with trees and properties close to the road. If I could get out of the drivers line of site around the corner, I could pull off the main road and wait for him to pass. I did this, I pulled off at the ditch bank crossing, and I turned off the lights, put the Jeep in park and took my foot off of the brake, no lights to give my location away.  I knew that there were three routes of escape from that point, so I had some confidence that should he spot me and start to follow again, I had a choice of ways to escape. However, he passed, and after a few minutes, he had not come back, so I felt confident in going home.

               I told my ex about this and he was somewhat skeptical, however, the next month when he was home on leave, the same thing happened, same guy and everything. We were headed home; he was driving, so he decided to see how serious this was. He sped up, got some distance between us and made a U turn at the church, so did the truck. Then he got more distance, and pulled off onto a side road as soon as he was able to do so without the truck seeing which road we turned off onto. He pulled into a drive way and did the same thing I did, put the Jeep in park, foot off the brakes, no light, but still have the engine so we could go if we had to.

               The truck passed the road, slowly. That made me even more nervous; this seemed to really confirm that he was following us. When we felt comfortable, we headed home.  We discussed it after putting the girls to bed. We tried to think of we had any friends that we had not seen in a while that it might have been, however, the truck did not match the vehicles of any of our friends, and even if it was a new acquisition, the driver, although only seen briefly, did not look like anyone that we recognize. 

               I did not go out much after that if I knew it would make it necessary to travel that road after dark. I never had an experience like that during the day, which makes it even creepier. I never did see that truck again, and soon after we moved to Kentucky.

               So, there you have it, my escape plan, and my real life “Great Escape” story. I bet tomorrow’s prompt will be asking me to write about a real life escape. Since I had to write this one twice, I would just repost this part, I think that would be fair. If I didn’t enjoy writing so much, then I might do that.

Thanks for reading,

Misty

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Blessed Be!