If I wasn't familiar with this hill, the highway sign would have been alarming:
They even had a third warning, a half mile later! But the risk was over-stated. Real risk needs a nasty surprise and I almost got one, a few days later:
I didn't see this vertical drain hole (and tire trap) when I drove in, pulling my trailer. By sheer dumb luck, I missed it. Imagine the embarrassing discussion with the tow truck driver that could have happened later in the day: "What were you thinking, mister? Didn't you even see the hole?"
Actually I was more concerned about the high winds on this half-bare ridgeline, and the upcoming weather forecast. There were a lot of blow-downs in the area.
And yet, the high altitude, high winds, and isolation were exciting, probably because Book Bub had told me of a discount on Lawrence Bergreen's "Columbus: The Four Voyages." There is nothing like reading the right book at the right time and place. This can happen during travel, when your sensibilities are heightened because you have escaped the humdrum routines of your normal existence.
Just think how trivial my risks were compared to what Columbus and his men were going through! Leaky ship hulls, unmapped shoals, hurricanes, scurvy, hunger, and Carib cannibals! But even trivial experiences can make a book come alive -- the book stops being a dead pile of verbiage that your eyeballs have to scan over.
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