Oh, yeah... I forgot.....

Reading Lisa's blog today reminded me of a MAJOR event that happened in December...

The first Saturday in December was snowy and slippery. However, that didn't stop Maria and I from going off into the county to go to an auction. Somewhere near Wheatley, I hit some black ice, was about to recover, when I hit another patch and skidded off the road and bumped a tree.

It wasn't even enough to make the airbags go off!! Of course, my cellphone was dead :P. We were right next to a farmhouse, so I trudged off to hopefully use their phone to call a tow truck. No luck - there were TWO trucks in the driveway, but no one home. The car was driveable, but there was a pretty big "bump" between the shoulder and the decline to the tree. I'm thanking God for the tree, because if it wasn't for the tree, they'd have been fishing the car from a big 6-7 foot deep ditch. First a car passes by, and offers the use of his cell phone, but it wasn't working out in the middle of nowhere (must have been a Fido phone). A fire truck happened by, and called the police for us. They were told they had to stay there until the cops got there. I felt bad about that, after all, there had been lots of accidents that morning, and here they were wasting their time babysitting us, who weren't even hurt. The cops and the tow truck showed up, and it all took less than an hour.

I figured there'd only be a few hundred dollars damage - a new bumper cover, straighten out the ding in the front fender....but NOOOOOOOOO! The original estimate was $2700, with the disclaimer that once they took off the bumper assembly, the rad and airconditioning systems could be damaged. And of COURSE they were. Grand total - over FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! and i just BUMPED a TREE!!! Sheesh.

Glad Lisa survived her brush with black ice unhurt! The car looked pretty banged up.