Special Post – “The Great Yak-Attack” (as reported by Greg)

Okay, it really wasn’t all that great, and it really wasn’t an attack. But it was exciting. Here’s what happened.

Soon after getting on I-95 going south out of Philadelphia early last Wednesday afternoon (July 2), I was driving and said to everyone, “Turn around and say good-bye to Philadelphia.” Immediately Tyler, who was sitting in the back of the van, followed my instructions and added, “And say good-bye to Zach’s shoes bouncing on the highway!” At that very moment, a few other things happened simultaneously: 1) Laurie noticed a few shoes on the roof by her window (she was sitting in the passenger seat up front), 2) Tyler said he saw some other shoes on the highway, and 3) another driver in the lane next to me started honking wildly and giving me the universal sign language signals for “Hey buddy, the top of your Yak is flapping open, shoes are flying everywhere, and your luggage is about to be donated to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation!”

Now you have to understand that at this time I’m doing about 65 mph in the number 3 lane of 4 lanes of traffic. The Good Samaritan who signaled me was in the number 4 lane beside me, but he quickly sped away after alerting me – I’m sure fearing that at any moment one of our projectile shoes would shoot through his window. With the number 4 lane now open, I quickly merged into it, and then to the shoulder where I came to a stop. The only problem now was that the shoulder was approximately ¾ of an inch wider than the width of our van. So here I am sitting with my family in the center of a busy interstate, fellow southbound cars whooshing by me on the right, northbound cars whooshing by on the left (separated only by a short concrete divider), a good number of our shoes sprinkled on the roadway behind me, and with an apparently malfunctioned lid on our Yakima cargo box. Oh by the way, the wind was blowing from right to left at about 40 mph.

Well, I knew that for safety reasons I couldn’t get out of the van to inspect things. So with my emergency flashers on, I prayerfully and carefully put the van in motion and began to make my way across traffic to get to the other side of the highway. This went fine, other than the fact that for whatever reason there was no real shoulder on the right side of this particular portion of highway. Therefore, my only option was to proceed slowly in the number 1 lane for a short distance until I could exit the highway. This process took about 5 minutes (though it seemed like 50), and was accompanied by some other kind and gracious motorists who honked and also gave the same universal sign language as the first guy (DUH! Like I didn’t know I had a problem at this point!). It should also be known that throughout this process, my dear family remained calm, cool, and collected – for the most part.

Once off the road and able to inspect the problem, it seems that the wind got under the front flap of the Yak cover, and dislodged one of the latches. We’ve always checked these carefully before driving, for obvious reasons. But who knows – maybe we just didn’t latch it as securely as we thought. Whatever the ultimate cause, amazingly no permanent damage was done and the Yak is still fully functional. Also amazingly, we only lost a number of the loose shoes that were in the Yak, sharing space with some duffle bags, sleeping bags, and a few plastic bags filled with dirty laundry. No luggage was lost. This was a great blessing, not only because we still have all the luggage, but if other items would have left the Yak, it could have caused a serious accident.

I’m happy to report, therefore, that we survived the “Great Yak-Attack”. Lord willing, we won’t have any others on the trip!