Well, it's been a notable year so far...
I hardly even know where to start. I suppose the traditional "don't worry, we're all fine" is worth saying. Well, I'm really hungry, but I'd have to drive somewhere to fix that, and I'm not feeling like driving right now. You'll see why if you click. :)
The original plan was to leave Truckee around lunchtime yesterday. Of course, Charles had tons of work, so that didn't happen. The time was pushed back to 6, and then 7, and we finally managed to get in the truck around 8:30. Mishap number one didn't take more than 10 minutes to occur. As we were headed out, not even quite to the freeway yet, one of the cases that he had packed Tetris-style into the back seat of the cab came loose and landed on my head. Hurt like hell, but didn't do any real damage. So we had to stop and figure out where to relocate that case, and then when I asked for Kleenex we realized that it was in the pocket of Charles' coat, which had been left behind. So, back to the house to get it.
And now, Leaving Truckee, take two. We even made it as far as the freeway this time! It's now around 9 pm and I'm nursing a headache, so I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to what was going on. Maybe three or four minutes after getting on the freeway, Charles says something like "Whoa, that guy lost a tire." I look up, and hey, I found the tire! It's moving fast and bouncing RIGHT AT US. I swear, it was like something out of a cartoon, seeing this tire bouncing up and down a couple of times before it hit us. I gasped, so Charles looked forward (he had glanced to the side to see the car that was now driving on an axle and sending up sparks), but there was no time for anything else. Honestly, I didn't think it was that big a deal. It's a tire, so it's full of air, and made of rubber, and look at it bounce like that... we're in a huge truck. No big deal, right? The sound it made when it hit the truck changed my mind about that. Holy cow, what a horrible WHAM that was. We pulled over right away as the tire rolled to the shoulder and settled peacefully leaning against a snowbank. Charles got out first and went to look at the front, and made kind of a face. Well, I wasn't going to rely on his report after that, so I got out too and came up to look. I suppose I should be impressed at how dead-center it hit, and I'm definitely happy about it not hitting any higher than it did. The front bumper is toast, but since the impact was right in the center neither of the airbag sensors were tripped (that would have really sucked). The tire hit mostly on the bumper and only a little on the grill above it, so while the grill is also totally hosed the damage didn't make it through to the radiator. At first I thought the hood was crumpled, but it turned out that I was wrong, it was just the grill plastic being all screwed up. The metal of the hood is totally intact, which is fantastic. (By the way, I'd put a picture of the damage here rather than try to describe it, but Charles drove the beast to work today. He wants to show it off.)
So, we got back in the truck, dithered about whether or not to try to pick up the tire (the truck was, as mentioned, stuffed with gear and we couldn't think of anywhere to put the tire aside from my lap, so we left it), and then headed up to the next exit, turned around, and came back on the other side of the freeway to meet up with the person who had actually lost the tire (a Suburban, of course, because a little car with small tires would be no fun). Lucky for us, CHP was already there. Rather than have everyone party on the side of the highway he asked us to go park at the gas station that was right off the next exit, and his partner came and started checking out the damage with Charles. There was one funny noise happening (which we later figured out was related to the fan) but other than that there was no damage that would keep us from driving. About 15 minutes later Officer #1 drove up with four passengers of the Suburban. The group was made up of six teenagers (three boys, three girls) and one set of parents (I never did figure out which ones were their kids, and which ones were cousins, but they were all family from what I could tell). Mom and the three girls were in this group, and the look on her face when I got out of the truck was pretty priceless. She nearly passed out in the snow, she was so freaked out that not only had their tire hit someone else, but it was someone else with a pregnant lady in the car. I reassured her that I wasn't THAT pregnant, it was going to take a little more than a loud noise to scare the kid out of my uterus, but she still looked like she really wanted to freak out for a bit.
And thus, for the next hour, we stood around in the lovely Truckee night air and dealt with paperwork and insurance and helping them find the tire and all that good stuff. The CHP officers were really nice, which was cool, and the time we sat there helped confirm that nothing on the truck was leaking at all, so when we were told it was okay for us to leave we didn't have too many reservations about resuming our trek home. Little concerned that something might come loose at some point, but you never know until you try, right?
So, some time after 10, we made our third attempt to leave Truckee. And this time we made it. Unfortunately, all the good dinner options were closed by the time we made it to civilization (Sacramento), so it was a Denny's kind of night. One of the headlights started getting flaky around Davis, but at least it was only one. We had to go straight to Charles' work to unload the truck (can't leave thousands of dollars in equipment in the truck overnight in my neighborhood), so it was 3 am by the time we got home. OMG tired. I'm impressed I made it to the bed before I fell asleep; the carpet wasn't looking too bad by then.
I think I can honestly say that was my most memorable New Year's Day adventure ever. And now, I am going to go scrounge for food in my kitchen, because I still don't feel like driving anywhere. :)
The original plan was to leave Truckee around lunchtime yesterday. Of course, Charles had tons of work, so that didn't happen. The time was pushed back to 6, and then 7, and we finally managed to get in the truck around 8:30. Mishap number one didn't take more than 10 minutes to occur. As we were headed out, not even quite to the freeway yet, one of the cases that he had packed Tetris-style into the back seat of the cab came loose and landed on my head. Hurt like hell, but didn't do any real damage. So we had to stop and figure out where to relocate that case, and then when I asked for Kleenex we realized that it was in the pocket of Charles' coat, which had been left behind. So, back to the house to get it.
And now, Leaving Truckee, take two. We even made it as far as the freeway this time! It's now around 9 pm and I'm nursing a headache, so I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to what was going on. Maybe three or four minutes after getting on the freeway, Charles says something like "Whoa, that guy lost a tire." I look up, and hey, I found the tire! It's moving fast and bouncing RIGHT AT US. I swear, it was like something out of a cartoon, seeing this tire bouncing up and down a couple of times before it hit us. I gasped, so Charles looked forward (he had glanced to the side to see the car that was now driving on an axle and sending up sparks), but there was no time for anything else. Honestly, I didn't think it was that big a deal. It's a tire, so it's full of air, and made of rubber, and look at it bounce like that... we're in a huge truck. No big deal, right? The sound it made when it hit the truck changed my mind about that. Holy cow, what a horrible WHAM that was. We pulled over right away as the tire rolled to the shoulder and settled peacefully leaning against a snowbank. Charles got out first and went to look at the front, and made kind of a face. Well, I wasn't going to rely on his report after that, so I got out too and came up to look. I suppose I should be impressed at how dead-center it hit, and I'm definitely happy about it not hitting any higher than it did. The front bumper is toast, but since the impact was right in the center neither of the airbag sensors were tripped (that would have really sucked). The tire hit mostly on the bumper and only a little on the grill above it, so while the grill is also totally hosed the damage didn't make it through to the radiator. At first I thought the hood was crumpled, but it turned out that I was wrong, it was just the grill plastic being all screwed up. The metal of the hood is totally intact, which is fantastic. (By the way, I'd put a picture of the damage here rather than try to describe it, but Charles drove the beast to work today. He wants to show it off.)
So, we got back in the truck, dithered about whether or not to try to pick up the tire (the truck was, as mentioned, stuffed with gear and we couldn't think of anywhere to put the tire aside from my lap, so we left it), and then headed up to the next exit, turned around, and came back on the other side of the freeway to meet up with the person who had actually lost the tire (a Suburban, of course, because a little car with small tires would be no fun). Lucky for us, CHP was already there. Rather than have everyone party on the side of the highway he asked us to go park at the gas station that was right off the next exit, and his partner came and started checking out the damage with Charles. There was one funny noise happening (which we later figured out was related to the fan) but other than that there was no damage that would keep us from driving. About 15 minutes later Officer #1 drove up with four passengers of the Suburban. The group was made up of six teenagers (three boys, three girls) and one set of parents (I never did figure out which ones were their kids, and which ones were cousins, but they were all family from what I could tell). Mom and the three girls were in this group, and the look on her face when I got out of the truck was pretty priceless. She nearly passed out in the snow, she was so freaked out that not only had their tire hit someone else, but it was someone else with a pregnant lady in the car. I reassured her that I wasn't THAT pregnant, it was going to take a little more than a loud noise to scare the kid out of my uterus, but she still looked like she really wanted to freak out for a bit.
And thus, for the next hour, we stood around in the lovely Truckee night air and dealt with paperwork and insurance and helping them find the tire and all that good stuff. The CHP officers were really nice, which was cool, and the time we sat there helped confirm that nothing on the truck was leaking at all, so when we were told it was okay for us to leave we didn't have too many reservations about resuming our trek home. Little concerned that something might come loose at some point, but you never know until you try, right?
So, some time after 10, we made our third attempt to leave Truckee. And this time we made it. Unfortunately, all the good dinner options were closed by the time we made it to civilization (Sacramento), so it was a Denny's kind of night. One of the headlights started getting flaky around Davis, but at least it was only one. We had to go straight to Charles' work to unload the truck (can't leave thousands of dollars in equipment in the truck overnight in my neighborhood), so it was 3 am by the time we got home. OMG tired. I'm impressed I made it to the bed before I fell asleep; the carpet wasn't looking too bad by then.
I think I can honestly say that was my most memorable New Year's Day adventure ever. And now, I am going to go scrounge for food in my kitchen, because I still don't feel like driving anywhere. :)