The Old Priest Grade

It is called Old Priest Grade. The name might be as such since it recalls the last person you might call out to when you begin your ascent, or descent, of this freakish piece of road, in central California. Call it what you will, it boggles the mind to think that it was the only way to get through the area for many years.
A little research shows me that the Old Priest Grade is about 2 miles long. I know it is steep because I navigated it, with my cart threatening to pull me down the entire way. It was as awful as any experience I had on my entire trip, and in the end cost me a big toenail on my left foot, from the intense pressure caused by my foot being forcefully jammed up into the toe of my shoe for so long. A real treat, that.
For many years cars and trucks have gone over the side as their drivers and/or brakes have worn out. Finally, several years back, a new road, ironically called New Priest Grade, was built alongside the Old Priest Grade, but three times as long and a third as steep, winding all over the place, and not much faster than the old road, actually taking much longer due to the distance and the fact that because of the zillion turns and twists drivers cant drive much faster than on the old road.
As I kept descending, I wondered at the numerous small pull offs and the water bottles that were there. At one stop, I notice that there were two water jugs, full, and with a small bag of Skittles taped to the sides. One also bore a note: “FREE SKITTLES—Sorry your car broke down. Call me…” and there was a phone number. I decided that the Skittles looked too enticing, but the water was a bit too off color for my taste. I also took the note. A call to the number on the note got a voicemail box. I left a message, which was not returned, until today. It turns out that a man named Austin and three passengers broke down or overheated on their way up the hill. Apparently, at the pull-off they discovered water, which alleviated their distressed radiator. They, as a group, decided to leave the water and Skittles as a "Pay it forward" gift.
Researching online later told me that the hill was literally a killer, of both cars and people. Lowlanders who had no experience driving in the mountains would routinely and sometimes tragically burn their brakes completely off and there were a lot of deadly rear end collisions at the lower part of the hill, or cars would go off the side of the road, and fatalities occurred that way.
So, a couple hours later, I made it to the bottom. The pervasive smell of brakes burning was intense. There were no accidents, no one died, a toe-nail would eventually be the only loss, and I got a couple of free bags of Skittles. Not such a bad road after all, I’d say.