Rock and Road
 

We were driving home tonight and the cars in front of us came to a sudden stop. My wife took a few pictures of this rock that fell in the road. Unfortunately the only camera she had available was the one on her cell phone. For a sense of scale, this is a two lane road.

What amazes me is that this was during rush hour (5:30 on a Friday afternoon) and the rock didn't hit anyone. This is the major highway up and down the canyon.

If we were about 15 seconds earlier this would have been behind us.

One truck tried to drive around the rock on the right (it looks like there's plenty of room) but it scraped the rock and a piece broke off. There were more rocks falling after this, so we stayed in the car.

After two hours they had all the cars turn around and drive the wrong way down the highway. It was a long trip home.

holy crap!

:eek:

Notice that part of the concrete barrier near the mountain has been crushed, and that part of the dividing barrier has also been damaged. I guess that the large white streak across the front of the rock is an impact mark.

I imagine that rock came rolling and tumbling down and bounced around on the road before stopping. Dangerous and scary stuff.

Whoa. How'd you like that landing in your pickup?

JEBUS!

Were the gods playing hopscotch?

tarnation!

whoa! Now that is a ROCK!

...and it rolled.

I thought about making that an IOTD, but I didn't think the image quality was good enough.

Maybe now we'll all take those "Falling Rock" signs a bit more seriously!

How can you take a falling rock sign seriously? If you do see it coming, how long will you have to do anything? I figure the only point of those signs is as a disclaimer "Well, we warned you, yet you still chose to drive on the road!"

Glad you're OK and had your camera -that is an impressive rock! I think it should be IOTD

It's so easy even a caveman can do it!

I can't shrink it down - it's a big rock.

I wonder how, exactly, they're going to/have gotten that thing out of there? Is there a piece of equipment big enough to just push it? Do they put it on a truck? Do they have to break it up in situ?

I think they're going to blast it.