And so vacation ends…
Bang
The car. Oh my GODS, the car. We got in a horrible 4 car collision on the 101 just south of San Francisco International Airport on Saturday. This is after 1.5 days of engaging in risky behaviour all over San Francisco (not dirty, read on as I spell it out later in the post) and a couple of hours after we finished dim summing it up with Quasi in REM at Yank Sing and buying Hightower’s family gifts in San Francisco’s Old Chinatown. The plan was to drive back on the 101 through Silicon Valley (*sigh*…AGAIN, because he didn’t get enough the first time around on Thursday) and stop by Palo Alto to check out the Stanford campus. I can’t resist a cute desi boy who looks at me with puppy dog eyes and says “We checked out the Google building but we haven’t seen Apple YET!!! Pleasssssssssssse!” Mostly I acquiesced because he looks out the car window the way cats sit on sills and look out at passing birds and squirrels.
So there we are, driving along, when traffic comes to one of those standstills, as it is wont to do on the highway. I had to come to a quick stop-but there was enough length between me and the car in front of me that I came to a full stop about a car length behind it.
Oh yeah, and then we got rear ended at about 20 to 25 mph (he thinks 15 to 20 mph). It was one of those situations where I was like “should I bother quickly switching lanes just in case someone rearends me?” but I assume people driving are paying attention and I’m like “nah, I’ll just assume the people behind me will come to a stop.”
They DID come to a stop. All over my car’s ass. And if life couldn’t get any better-not only did we have the primary collision (Collision #1), the force of which pushed my car across the entire gap into the car in front of me, then we had the treat of a SECOND collision when the guy who hit US, got rearended by his own tailgater (Collision #2)-I’m guessing at even harder than he hit us.
None of us were injured-but Hightower and I are suffering from major whiplash and we both had bruising where the seatbelts prevented us from pitching headfirst into the windshield (twice). The least damaged car was the one in front of us-since there was a gap between me and the car in front, they ended up with some slight fender damage from the force of my car hitting them as it was plowed from behind by Collision #1.
My car (Car #2) survived front injuries, since the force between me and Car #1 was relatively light. But the back is gone. Guys, it is frocking GONE. We thought the only thing wrong with the car was the back bumper, an easy fix, but when we opened the trunk (which now doesn’t close, we got a full look at the level of damage). The entire trunk of the car in the back is crumpled and warped-as in the metal trunk is crushed from compression. Hightower has jerry rigged the car with tape-which is the situation now, for us to be able to take the 5 (quickest route) back down to Los Angeles. The engine is fine-but it basically needs an entire body overhaul in the back. They are going to have to replace the metal that makes up the trunk, the bumper and the sides of the back.
Car #3 was crumpled in both front and back. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the guy since I was so livid. Car #4 was the worst off-it was leaking guts all over the highway (some sort of fluid).
Yes, we got rubbernecked. And we slowed traffic down on the 101 for a while through rubber necking and the fact that they had to completely stop traffic in order to allow our cars to drive on to the shoulder since the accident was on the other side of the highway.
You know what was AWESOME? Driving slowly and gapping about 15 car lengths in front of us the entire ride home but seeing people tailgating us and pulling the “left” swerve to avoid hitting the back of our already massively frocked up car during traffic slowdowns. I would seriously clench in fear that we’d get rear ended every time I looked back and saw a car swerve left because they were approaching us too fast from behind.
I love California but I hate the drivers, seriously.
Whimper
The stress of the incredibly long ride home and the aftermath of the accident, coupled with our minor injuries left us EXHAUSTED. Hightower missed his ass-early flight back the next morning by 5 minutes (rather, he got there before the flight but missed the deadline for checking in luggage). So I did get him for an extra day since all the flights back to the East Coast were overbooked and he got the one seat on a flight that left this morning. It left me confused. Yeah, I was happy but it was just more stress for him, which was more stress and unhappiness for me. I like having my booboo around but not at the cost of dreading parental lectures on irresponsibility upon arrival. I suggested taking home a picture of the massively frocked up car and riding the whiplash “I could be DEAD” sympathy but desi parents can’t resist a well-timed lecture even AFTER you’ve learned your lesson, lol.
I’ll follow up with another post about the vacation and there will be (AWESOME) photos when Hightower gets home and sends me some of the shots. Unfortunately we forgot to photograph the car with his digital camera but I’ll post a camera phone pic when I get the other ones from him. We changed plans, we didn’t do some stuff, we did a whole lot of other stuff. It was magnificent. And even though it ended all askew with the crash and the missed flight-we figured out that we’re both pretty mellow* and can work together effectively through crisis.
With tape. Lots and lots and lots of tape.
*Well…he is incredibly mellow. I am an anxious person who gets mellowed out by the mellow waves he radiates all over the place.
. this bus is rattling. I love it
(kisses)