4 Strikes and Yer Out

In late July/early August, the back left quarter panel of our truck was damaged and had to be repaired.

A couple of weeks later, I left for Conference in Modesto on a Thursday. That Friday morning, literally as I was stepping out of the shower after a dreadmill run, the phone rang. It was The Hub. He'd gotten into an accident the night before - a large truck ran him out of his lane and into the merdian. And no, the driver didn't stop. My beloved Nissan was totaled. And yes, I asked him if he was okay. Granted, it was after I asked about the car, but I asked. For the record, he ended up with a pretty nasty concussion and whiplash. Was quite looney for about three weeks. It was very weird . . . but I digress.

This incident necessitated us having to purchase a car. Thankfully, Toyota was offering 0% interest. That, along with the Costco purchase program, got us a great deal on a 2011 Toyota Camry.

Fast forward about 3 weeks. I get home after work, but have to go back out to the car, which is parked with its butt toward our front door. As my vision connects with the back bumper, my brain, in slo-mo, realizes there are deep gouges in the bumper. Somebody had hit my car while it was parallel parked along the side of the building where I work. You can imagine my stifled cries of, "No!" (I spent the next week looking at bumpers whenever I walked out there, trying to find blankety-blank culprit who was too much of a jerk to leave a note. What goes around comes around, right? Well, at least one can hope so.) Since the cost of repair is only $60 more than our deductible, we didn't put in a claim with our insurance for this one. But again, I digress.

Fast forward once again to this morning. The Hub and I pick up Karen around 4:00 a.m., we drive to the airport and drop off The Hub for his week-long trip to Colorado, and Karen and I take off across 299, heading to Whiskeytown for what is anticipated to be a very wet 30k trail run. Bad weather is heading into our area, and some rain had already come down during the night. We're cruising along through the mountains, taking care to watch for deer. About 20+ minutes into the drive, we're following a truck, we round a corner and WHAM! Rock slide. Rocks up to the size of softballs are strewn across the road . . . as are two larger than basketball, albeit miniature boulders. Which I can't avoid. I hit one of the damn things. The car bounces over the top. There's a terrible crunching sound. I'm thinking $%*&!

We follow behind the truck and pull into the next large pull-out spot right behind it. There's already another truck stopped. The guy in the first truck gets out and says something to the driver of the second truck. Karen and I are getting out of my car to assess the damage. The guy gets back in his truck and they both drive off! Without saying a single word to us! I couldn't believe it! I guess getting to their precious last day of hunting was more important than determining that the people in the other vehicle are okay. Man, oh man, oh man was I mad! Crap, I'm still mad.

I pull out my flashlight, and Karen and I look to try and assess whether or not anything is leaking under the car. Nothing appears to be, but my front bumper, which, on a 2011 Camry, is basically the entire front of the car, is destroyed.

Karen calls 911 to get CalTrans out to clear the road, and since we're only about 10 minutes from Weaverville, we go ahead and drive into town to the gas station where there's more light and we can better assess any potential undercarriage damage. We tell a guy there what had happened, and he says more than likely there will be more rock slides the further east we go. With that information, and the fact that the hood of my car won't completely shut, we nix the run and head back home, stopping long enough to set a flare on the far side of the slide to warn other drivers.

So Two Questions: (1) When The Hub checks in this week, do I ruin his vacation by telling him what happened? He's going to ask how the run went, so what do I say? (2) Do I put yet a third claim in with my insurance company and chance getting canceled? I'm sure it's going to cost at least a couple of thousand dollars to repair the damage.

Thankfully, neither Karen nor I was hurt. However, that aside, suffice to say I'm totally and completely pissed off and depressed right now. There aren't enough brownie bites in the world at the moment.