Well, I didn't make the Navy Seals event. Sorry 'bout that. A week ago, my mother in law suffered a massive stroke, her second. Friday a week ago, we rushed up to Lancaster, PA, to be with her and dad last when it happened. The family was given the news that she was brain dead and it was just a matter of time. After spending the weekend getting dad situated with my sister-in-law, we came back and waited. She passed on Wednesday.
The funeral was set for this last Sunday. We decided to convoy up with my son and daughter-in-law on Saturday. We spent eleven hours making our way up (an eight hour trip), largely because of rotten traffic between Tidewater and Richmond. A lady swerved and bumped my son's car west of New Kent at 60mph and then fled the scene. Another lovely gal from the outer banks got her license number and stopped. It took an hour to get a state policeman and file the report. We were all amazed that there was virtually no damage to the car.
The Funeral went well, with many people coming from up and down the east coast to remember mom. I was persuaded to purchase and wear a suit for the first time in years. My wife spoke at the funeral, recalled some fond memories of her mom, and actually got a few giggles from her stories. I was really proud of her.
We loaded up and began the trip back at 5pm. The stretch from D.C. to Richmond had a stretch where the three lanes were squeezed down to one, bring the traffic to a halt. By 1:30 am we were making the transition from the I-295 beltway to I-64E just east of Richmond. The DOT was doing paving work and had turned the merge point into a cone forest right past a rise in the road, narrowing I-64 to one lane and extending the entrance ramp. The actual yeild point was extremely short and unmarked save a Yield sign at forming the corner. We rounded the corner with I-64 clear and then a semi-rig blasted over the rise doing better than 80 (in a work zone) and almost hit us. We were able to stop by aiming for the cones and stomping the breaks. My daughter-in-law behind us wasn't able to stop and whacked into our backside at somewhere around 25 mph.
No-one was hurt but the cars were banged up, half-in and half-out of the cones. The MINI's accident kill switch had triggered so it was hors d' combat. We pushed the cars out of traffic and got to safety. The police were there within about three minutes(!), and took the report, issued the requisate ticket, and called a tow for the MINI. It took until about 3:30 am to get my car settled up at Crown MINI of Richmond, then we piled into my son's car and made our way home and bed at 5 am.
We spent yesterday, a little sore from the impact, dealing with the insurance and arranging for the MINI to get sorted. The insurance company has been very good to me. Here's the damage:
I can honestly say that it never occurred to me to be all that worried about my MINI - when my loved ones are involved in a wreck, their safety is
SO much more important than that of my car that any damage is totally secondary. Knowing that I love my MINI, my lovely daughter-in-law felt really guilty about running into it. Frankly, I was more concerned with getting the family home and safe, and saddened that her car was damaged while she supported the family.
Soooo... The Red Rocket is up at Crown and I'm driving this:
A Grand Am from Enterprise. Not bad, for American. We'll see how the whole thing plays out.
Take care,
Bob
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