Vacation Ramblings

[piasharn]

Y'know that rant I wrote earlier this morning? Well, go read this instead. Once again, Molly Ivans is able to put my thoughts into words better than I am.

Now, for the promised story of my trip to California, complete with the two car accidents and a brush with Death.

The trip started out pretty uneventful. We left at about 6:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) and made pretty good time getting out of Michigan. I prefer getting through the Chicago area at odd times to avoid traffic, and that's exaclty what we did. After a brief cat-nap, I took over driving again as we headed into Nebraska.

That's where Accident Number One occured. It was about 6:15 a.m. (Central Time) and the sun was rising. It was slightly misty out, and the freeway was winding us through a rather woodsy area about 30 miles (48 kilometers) outside of Lincoln. Out of nowhere, there were three or four deer crossing the road in a line.

There was nowhere to go, and I ended up hitting one of them.

(My sister had been dozing in the passanger seat when she was rudely awakened by a large thump and me muttering, "Oh, shit...")

In all the years I've been driving, this is only the second animal I've ever hit. (The first was a racoon a couple of years ago.) This is no small matter when you look at where I live. While I was working nights, I kept a tally of how many animals I had dodged. It ended up being something like five cats, four squirrels, three deer, nine possum, one fox and a muskrat.

With the hood smashed to hell and coolant leaking everywhere, I managed to pull off to the side of the road. I called 911 first to get a cop out there, then AAA for a tow-truck. The damage looked horrendous at first, although once I managed to calm down a bit, I realized how lucky we were.

My car, for those curious, is a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24. Two doors, 6-cylinder engine, etcetera. It's a fairly small car, especially when compared to the size of the deer. I've seen deer to a lot of damage to vehicles much larger than mine, and it could have easily killed us had we hit it more head-on and smashed the windshield.

The hood, front grill, passenger head-light and radiator were busted. That was all. Thank the gods that the new engine was perfectly fine.

We ended up spending five days in Lincoln. Not because of the car repair place. They were extremely nice and helpful. (They also treated us very well when one considers that my sister has purple and pink hair, and we're both female. I've had some mechanics try to pull shit past me because of my sex - as if I don't know jack about cars.) It was the insurance company that kept dragging their heels.

In the end, they totaled the car. This was actually better for us. If they hadn't, they would have wanted everything, down to the last coat of paint, to be done before we could leave. As it was, we were able to have them repair the car enough to get it running.

Barring a hail storm out on the plains in Colorado, the rest of the trip passed fairly monotonously. Only stopping for gas, we made it from Lincoln, Nebraska, to San Diego, California in exactly 24 hours. Driving through Utah in the middle of the night was a little disturbing, though. There's this stretch of 150 miles or so in which there is nothing. No towns, no gas stations, nothing what so ever. We did stop at one point to look at the stars, which were amazing without any light pollution to block them.

At about 4:30 a.m. (Mountain Time), we emerged from the foothills to see a sea of lights... Viva Las Vegas, baby ^_^

I adored California, of course. Due to our set-back, we skipped San Fransisco and headed straight to southern California. We spent quite a bit of time down at Ocean Beach where my sister attempted to surf and took a day trip down to Tijuana. (That's the first time I've ever been to Mexico, believe it or not.)

I also got to meet both erythros and kunzgita, which was very cool ^___^

On the return trip was when we had the near-death expirience. We were in Utah again, out in that desolate stretch that I mentioned. It was late morning and my sister was driving. I was in the back seat, half asleep. She was apparently more tired than she had thought... the sun was in our eyes, the road was rough with an unpaved shoulder covered in gravel. She dozed off for just a moment, in which the car drifted towards the median. As soon as the tires left the road, she snapped awake (as did I) and tried to get us back on the road.

She overcompensated, and we spun out of control. This is no small matter when you are doing nearly 90 mph (145 kph). We did several donughts over the rocky median and back across our lanes of traffic. The car was skidding sideways the entire time, and I could feel it trying to flip over. I don't know how we managed to stay upright. I am amazed that we didn't smash into one of the other vehicles out there. In those seconds that we were spinning, I honestly thought that we would be killed.

(In hindsight, it's odd how some unknown instincts kicked in. As soon as the car started to spin, I curled myself up, braced against the door, tucked my head down and covered my face with the pillow I had been leaning against. It wasn't out of fear. I don't remember being scared until after we had stopped. Some part of my brain was telling me that I needed to protect myself should we flip and glass started flying everywhere.)

The dust finally settled, although our heart rates stayed up for a while longer. My cell phone wasn't getting a signal, but a lady who saw the accident pulled over to help us. Her cell phone was able to get through, thank the gods. The two driver side tires were blown out, but the rims were fine and there was very little damage otherwise.

It took an hour for a tow-truck to get out to us. To pass the time and keep myself calm, I played archeologist in the rocky terrain. I know that a lot of dinosaur bones have been found in areas like this... it's all ancient sea beds. It's actually rather fun to pick up pieces of flaky rock and open them up like a book. There was quite a bit of quartz amoung the shale and granite, but no fossils.

(Part of me was hoping that I could find something valuble that would pay for the car repairs. Hey, a girl can dream, right? Besides, I've always wanted to go on a dinosaur dig.)

It took another hour to get us back into the nearest town. It was late afternoon by the time we got to a repair shop. Since we knew it would be the next day before we could be on the road again, we rented a room in a motel next door.

That was the oddest motel I've ever been to. First of all, the lady behind the desk was acting as though she was very stoned. The room was clean, although I don't think any of the interior decorating had been updated since the early 1980s. However, the creepiest thing was that there was no Bible.

Here we were, in the middle of Mormon country, and not a religious book in sight. Weird...

(Of course, anyone who has watched the X-Files knows that Bibles in hotel rooms are actually a way for the government to spy on us ^_-)

All in all, it was an interesting trip... both the journey and the destination. I actually like driving. I tend to forget how big this country is, and car trips give me a chance to remember the scope of things.

I've made it back safe and sound, though, with a few more stories to tell and some memories to add to the collection. They say what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. At the rate I'm going, I'll be as tough as a diamond in a few years.

Now, do you think that someone was out to get me, looking after me, or both?