Our holiday got off to a terrible start on October 14th. I still cannot believe what happened. I shall start with a picture.
I still get a little shaky looking at this.
We started off with a terrific bang about 6 o'clock that morning. Of course it was dark and I kept commenting that we needed to keep a close watch for deer. A few miles east of Clive we didn't have to worry anymore about deer since we ran into a wall of cattle standing on the highway. There was a vehicle parked on the shoulder facing east but other than that there was absolutely no warning. It was all over in a matter of seconds and it would have been over for me if I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt.
Someone told me this should be a commercial for the safety features of Toyota.
I can't say enough about all the help we got that morning. We were on our way to Edmonton International to catch a flight at 10 a.m. Once it was determined that neither one of us was hurt bad enough to cancel our travel plans we decided to do all we could to carry on. The Clive Fire Department, Bashaw RCMP and Lacombe EMS all responded and did a great job. AMA responded with a tow truck and rental car arrangements for Red Deer. The last piece of the puzzle was a wonderful act of kindness from a complete stranger. The first person on the scene was a local man who also happened to be on the Clive Fire Department. He just hopped out of bed and drove there to help. He insisted on driving us to Red Deer to the rental car place. We were just going to hitch a ride with the tow truck driver. This fellow would not hear of it. He put us in his nice warm truck and got us to where we needed to go. Just as quickly as he came into our lives he left with a smile and a wave!
Thus began our holiday.......again! We got a rental, drove on to Calgary and caught a noon flight to L.A. We were in Long Beach and settled into our hotel by 4:30 p.m. If not for the kindness of others and for the miracle of seatbelts and airbags the outcome would have been altered.
I had all week to recover from the stress and strain, not to mention the significant bruising. I am still not very comfortable as a passenger in a vehicle. I am also quite sure that unless it is an emergency I really do not want to drive around in the dark again.
All that said, we had a great time in California once we got there! More on that later.
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