It's Dark Out There...

Have you ever been on a road where you stop and say to yourself "This is the kind of place where people go to be murdered."? Of course you haven't. No one does. That was a dumb question.

I have though! I've blogged before about how the lack of lighting at crime scenes makes my job more difficult, but there is one place in town that puts that story to shame.

State Route 159. I've talked before about this road and how it seems to be a death trap for those who decide 192 MPH with no seat belt is a good idea. Saturday morning I was out looking for a crash. I missed the status of the victims so I had to go see for myself what the dillio was.

Long story short, I never found the crash. But even if I did, what the hell would I have shot? It's dark as all hell out there.

Basically, for those of you not familiar with it, what you have is a canyon, with mountains on both sides of this winding road. So there is no city light coming in. Add that to the fact that it was cloudy (and actually snowing out there - I drove through a blizzard even though it didn't seem any colder than maybe 38) so the moon was obscured.

I somehow managed to shoot the snow, as I know my station would have flogged me something good if I hadn't. It was wonderful video of snow flakes passing my lens in front of what looked like a black screen. Gain all the way up, iris all the way open and my light on and you STILL couldn't see more than 10 inches past the camera.

I was standing there thinking that I am either going to be attacked by a coyote or some weird truck driver with a hook for a hand. A fire truck passed me by as he was heading back to the fire house, but I don't think he was able to see me. Maybe just my Frezzi. They probably thought it was a UFO or a ghost and sped up.

I returned to SR 159 that morning to see if it was still snowing. It wasn't, but me, NBC and ABC all made a road trip out of it! Pictures coming soon!