the long way home...

(Toadie, this may slightly compare to your door-shattering of the Hole...except this was certainly not my fault, nor was it avoidable in any way...nevertheless, we'll both probably go down in the books for these experiences.)

It was quite a ride home from visiting our camp team girls at CIY in Carbondale, IL last night. What was supposed to be only a 3 and a half hour ride back to Lincoln turned into a 5 and a half hour ride. Why? Pictures to come soon (for some reason Blogger sucks right now and won't let me post them)... and explanation below:

As I was on my merry way, heading up Rt. 51 North, in the LCC '05 Camry, I proceeded behind 2 other vehicles...directly in front of me was a white van, and in front of the van was a big dark green truck. The truck turned right off of 51 onto a gravel road, and the van continued on. I did as well, however, the truck decided he was going to accelerate quickly onto the loose gravel road. As he did this, his back tires spewed up what seemed like a million rocks at me and the Camry.

I had the front passenger side window down about 4 inches, and probably thankfully so. However, rocks ended up flying in through the window at my head. But it sounded like the car was hit by more rocks than what were flying in at me, so as I began to move past the fact that I was just hit in the head by multiple rocks, I noticed the backseat passenger window was totally shattered. In a matter of seconds, just like James Frey, the window was in a million little pieces.

here is my new rock collection from those I gathered from the front seat:


Now I pulled into a driveway after the gravel road so I could turn around and try to catch the truck that had long since gone down the gravel road. I didn't catch the plates or anything. I ended up going back to the driveway of a house of a 76 year old man for whom I am very thankful. From his driveway I proceeded to call GT and Lynn Laughlin to ask what to do, called 911 to report it, and talked to the old man who lived there.

By the time I walked back to the car, pieces of the window had fallen in (as I presumed would happen from the sound of the window's snapping, crackling, and popping). So the old man helped me push all of the glass into a towel so I could drive the rest of my way back to Lincoln with a lesser chance of glass flying further into the car at me. Needless to say, it was a little windy, but much safer.

So I'm okay, and the Camry will be...however, she took quite the gravel attack. I was pretty shaken up for the time being, even though it wasn't my fault. It was the weirdest thing...but I know the Lord sure protected me. Even in the littlest things, I'm thankful...like the way that I happened to have the front window down about 4 inches so that window didn't shatter into the front seat...and the way the old man who lived right there was super nice and helpful and even let me use his bathroom because I had to pee so bad...and the way Lynn and Greg were understanding and willing to help me...and the way I didn't get cut or hurt in any way, except for a minor cut on my elbow from a piece of glass that landed on the arm rest.

I was planning on coming back and posting about all of my nostalgia from CIY days at SIU, but that one's going to have to wait until a later date...