coming in hot

My mid- to late- 80s mother-in-law and her husband came to visit last weekend.  The drive from their home is about 135 miles. It can be an uneventful two to two and a half hour drive, but involves interstate driving through Denver along with traffic congestion, construction zones, and mishaps along the way.

A few weeks ago, step-father-in-law had an incident that helped him come to the realization that he probably shouldn't drive anymore, so now MIL is the sole driver.  I'm not necessarily convinced she should be behind the wheel, but it's the lesser of two evils. And they have an SUV with all kinds of sensors and control systems, so we keep our  mouths shut. They seem to do fine as long as they are in familiar surroundings during daytime. 

They made it up here just fine and attended Meego's graduation with us, Chaco in the role of chauffeur.  After the grad ceremony, we gathered with other families at The Lake House -  Meego and his roommates' college rental house. The house is a typical college rental house on a typical college rental house street and nowhere near any lake that I know of. 

Not surprisingly, MIL and SFIL were ready to turn in while the grad bash was in full swing.  I walked with them to their car and asked if they could make their way back to the hotel okay. It wasn't far away, about 3 miles.

"SFIL says he knows from his phone", MIL replied.

They typically don't use GPS, so I saw this as a sign that they're finally ready to embrace the technology.  So with that, I saw them off with confidence, adding that it was still light out so, no worries!

They did eventually make it to the hotel.  About an hour and a half later?  It was good and dark by then. SFIL rehashed their adventure for us the next day -  about how it was too dark to see any street signs, how they often didn't know which direction they were going, etc.  I'm sure they were exhausted by the time they made it to bed, but I'm glad they weren't in an accident.

Coming home from work on Monday, traffic was light in the area since the high school had the day off for some reason.  Good thing, because just beyond the high school is this 4-way-stop intersection where I turn left to head home.

There was no one behind me, and I eased myself to the left turn lane and approached the intersection.  A cute Miata convertible approached from the right, totally blew through the stop sign, then turned left into oncoming traffic.  Oncoming traffic = me and Daisy, my commuter bicycle.

Cue bike cam footage:

We managed to avoid each other, as the driver seemed to realize her mistake.  But strangely, she swerved around me by pulling further to the left?  

Thankfully, there wasn't much traffic around, and we easily avoided one another.  As she went by, I noticed she was an older woman - 70's maybe?  The Miata had dealer plates, so a new acquisition?  

I thought maybe she was meaning to pull into the cul de sac on her left and was cutting corners by driving down the wrong side of the road, but she actually continued down the left side, all the while, going upstream like a salmon.

She went over the crest of the hill and beyond toward the high school, never to be seen by me again.  

Cute car, though? 😕