Great story, Bill.

I understood that this thread was about near misses in relationships but I have also found fascinating the near misses with death that people talked about.

I had a near miss along those lines.

My wife and I were on a photography vacation with a couple we are friends with. On this particular trip, we planned to photograph (among other things) a slot canyon in Arizona. Slot canyons are typically 50 to 100 feet deep or so and very narrow - maybe as wide as 8 or 10 feet and as narrow as a couple of feet.
You do not want to be in one if there is a flash flood - there is simply nowhere to go.

So we got to the canyon - it's on native american land and they control the access. The woman there said she didn't have any release forms so she couldn't let us in. I asked her if she could just write a statement on paper and we would all sign it. She wrote, "If I am injured in the canyon, it is not my fault". We all signed it. Yes, you read that correctly.

It was sprinkling at the time. We all knew you didn't want to be down in these when it rained but we all went anyway. I can't speak for the others but my IQ always took a nose dive when there was an opportunity for a good photo.

The native americans lower ladders into the canyons so thats how we got down. We spent a couple of hours photographing. Then we climbed out and left, patting ourselves on the back for getting good photos and not being scared off by a few sprinkles.

Exactly one week later in the same canyon at the same hour of the day, ten people were killed in a flash flood.

What's the near miss? I had a two week window to take a one week trip. We went the first week, pretty much for no good reason. Our day to day itinerary would have been the same had we gone the second week - just shifted by 7 days. Yikes...

Scott

Scott's EP "The Mayor of Kingdom City" - Free download at Prosity Records

Scott's CD "Full Assembly Required" on CD Baby

http://soundcloud.com/s-w-campbell