Where the Road Refused to Negotiate
There are few institutions in America more dependable than a Nevada highway, where the desert stretches to eternity, the sagebrush minds its own affairs, and people periodically interrupt the peace by discovering fresh and inventive methods of rolling an automobile onto its roof. Such was the thing provided on Friday, July 17 near the Reno Fernley Raceway, where speed, having grown bored with the racetrack, evidently wandered onto U.S. 95A.
The first to arrive were deputies from the Lyon County Sheriff's Office, who did all that honest men could do when confronted with fate after it had already signed the paperwork. Soon, North Lyon Fire joined the effort, lending skill, determination, and that peculiar optimism required of those whose profession insists upon wrestling with misfortune, even when misfortune has no intention of surrendering.
Yet the driver, the lone occupant, had already departed for a destination requiring no driver's license.
Naturally, the highway responded as highways always do. Traffic stacked itself into an impressive monument to impatience.
Every delayed motorist became a philosopher, certain that the greatest tragedy unfolding that afternoon was the interruption of his schedule. Some sighed dramatically, others searched for shortcuts that every other genius had already discovered, while the sagebrush remained the only witness possessing enough manners to remain silent.
The Nevada State Police undertook the solemn business of discovering precisely how gravity, speed, and poor fortune reached their unhappy agreement. Investigations comfort the living, though they rarely persuade the departed to amend their decisions.
Thus another chapter entered Nevada's dusty ledger, a place where the desert keeps every secret, humanity keeps making new mistakes, and time, unlike traffic, never pauses for anyone.
