There were no humans or animals harmed in the creating of this post and let it be known that we credit the Lord for having kept it that way.
It all began on a Sunday morning....yesterday, actually. We decided to go visit some friends who live about an hour and a half from us. (Kevin & Marlene and family, love you guys!)
We piled into the van.....the van our children not so affectionately dubbed The Titanic quite a long time ago. So strong was their dislike for this thing that they actually hoped it would hit an iceberg. I always thought that was a terribly dubious name to give a family vehicle. Terrible, just terrible.
Anyhow, we were within half an hour of our destination when Paul's cell phone rang. It was the neighbor informing us that our pigs were running down the road back home. Oh joy.
While Paul was on the phone trying to make arrangements to secure the pigs, Audrey was just driving along when
BAM! It sounded like we had just hit a chuck hole....only there was no chuck hole.
We had her pull off the road directly and a bunch of the guys jumped out to survey the situation.
Now, if you've been reading posts here of late, you might recall that when this same van lost its radiator a few weeks ago, Audrey was driving. One might conclude that with Audrey being the driver when all things catastrophic happen that she may be the cause of such things. Not so. None of this is her fault. She's just in the right place at the wrong time....or wrong place at the right time....or whatever.
Back to the us beside the road. The wild whirring of the transmission and the inability to affect any movement told us that the Titanic was going no where of its own volition. We did what we always do in such cases: dispatched Blake to come with his truck and trailer. I'm pretty sure he probably sighed (maybe muttered), shrugged his shoulders, and then---like a son who has too much pity to refuse---jumped into his truck and headed our way.
Meanwhile our friend Kevin, who we were going to see, jumped into his van and came to tow us on to his place. Everything went along swimmingly until all of a sudden. There was some incredibly unhealthy noise at the back end and within a instant: whoosh! The wheel was free of the van along with a length of axle. The wheel no longer present, the brake drum then smacked down on the pavement and the whole horrific, sparking mass skidded along for a little ways until the guys got their wits about them enough to stop. The wheel and axle went sailing on past all of us, up over the guardrail, and disappeared into the grassy embankment. We are so glad if it had to go, it went peacefully. No one was approaching from the opposite direction and it cleared our vehicles before it took a decided turn to the right before exiting the roadway.
We certainly understand the gravity of what
could've happened. It was one of those situations having turned out well and everything, that it struck many of us uproariously funny how it all went down. Like how many times does *that* happen??
Blake arrived a short time after Kevin and Paul went back to the scene to retrieve the Titanic. They pushed it onto the trailer with Kevin's Bobcat. Blake ended up hauling it home later in the afternoon.
The old Titanic is now resting on a flatbed trailer awaiting its fate. It sports some cool new graphics along the side where the tire scuffed it as it sailed off and there is a flat spot on the brake drum where it ground off on the pavement . I'm thinking it's slated for a ride down to Speedy's Auto Salvage.
The Titanic has lived a long, useful life. It's been to many----340,000 miles worth!---of places in its lifetime. It was to Alaska and back a few times and many place in between with it's former owner. It's ferried our family to a lot of places, too, and has given us a lot of memories ( both good and bad!).
~Colleen
