But at least I FOUND my STUPID iPOD!

So, I guess I need to tell a story . . . . and chances are once I get going, I'll ramble for a good long while. Because this is, after all, a journally place for me, and I will write whatever I darn well please. :D So if you want the short version, why don't you head on over to Naazju's blog for the basics? :)

And, since It's popped into my head: "Now, this is a story all about how my car got flip-turned upside down. . . ."

:D

Intrigued? ;)

Oh, and I guess I should be nice and start by saying that Naazju and I, the only people in the car, came away from it remarkably unscathed (excepting a few bruises, a couple cuts, and some stiffness. And no other cars or people got involved. At least, not with the dangerous part. :P)

Anywho, so last week--around Tues. May 29, 2009--my roommate (Naazju) and I decided we'd take a quick jaunt down to Arches National Park to camp and do a little hiking and picture taking. It's wasn't the most planned-ahead trip, but whatever. On-a-whim trips are fun, too. :) However, since we didn't get there terribly early Friday night (around 10:00pm, infact . . .), and we hadn't reserved anything (reservations, at least for the sites I looked at, had to be made 4 days in advance . . .), we ended up driving some 30 miles up and down a particular highway, checking all the campsites along the way, and being completely unsuccessful in finding one. So we spent the night in a motel in the nearby Moab. (Turns out some other friends of ours were also camping that same night, and there was an extra site near them . . . Go figure. If only we'd known, and all that. :P)

So anyway, we spent a touch more than we'd planned, but whatever. We were content. Took some ridiculous pics in the Motel--reading the Gideon's Bible, laying on the hideous covers, nonsense like that. Then we read some Old Testament, got some sleep, woke up, ate some breakfast, and headed into Arches for the lovely picture-taking part. Which was every bit as fun and lovely as we'd planned. :) I'll get some of my fave pics up in a later post.

We left Arches at about 1:40pm on Saturday, because we wanted to get back home in time for a wedding reception and a birthday party, respectively. So we didn't have time to hike to Delicate Arch, or anything . . . but we'll hit that next time, maybe. Anywho, so we drove along to Green River, got some gas, and headed on up the freeway. Only apparently I missed an exit very shortly thereafter . . . (another result of not planning--we didn't have terribly useful maps.) Anywho, so we just coasted along westward on I-70. We'd have gotten home eventually . . . it just may have taken another hour or two. So much for making that reception . . . :P But whatever. If I'd not missed my exit, or if we'd left earlier or later, or if we'd stopped along the way for one reason or another . . . should'a would'a could'a. Didn't. Life goes on.

So we're coasting along I-70, and it's mostly a bright, sunny day, but now and again we hit patches of light rain. Nothing terribly concerning, but enough that I take it off Cruise Control and slow down a touch every time we get into some wetness. And then we're maybe halfway between Salina and Richfield, and we're driving through that very light rain, and I may or may not have been off Cruise already . . . I can't recall. Then I see in front of us this crazy looking phenomenon - it's like the mist that sprays up behind a semi driving in the rain, only there's no semi. Just ridiculous amount of rain coming down so hard on the road ahead that it's raising its own mist three feet off the asphalt. It was kinda nutty. So, knowing it'll be insanely wet for a while, I'm already tapping the brakes to slow down . . . I'm pretty sure I didn't "slam" on the brakes, because at that point I wasn't worried. Just impressed by the crazy wet.

We drive into the rain, and it's like driving into a waterfall. That abrupt, that loud, that plain-crazy-pouring. Just a deluge. It was actually kinda neat. :P

I'm still not worried, until a few seconds in I notice that the car's not facing full front anymore. And one of the thoughts that flits through my mind is something along the lines of: It's so weird how quiet it is . . . none of that brake-squealing noise, just silently spinning . . .

And then I'm trying to correct, and Naazju is advising me to "turn into the turn," which of course I've heard before, but never actually *practiced,* so I don't actually know what the junk that phrase even MEANS, practically speaking . . . So I try to correct for a while, and my brain and my body have two completely different ideas of what said correction should really consist of . . . and I basically just hope we skid to a stop in the mud.

Well, we hit the mud, all right . . . drove right off the road and into the median. At some point we got completely turned around so the car was facing east instead of west, and beyond that, I don't know what else happened when. I just know that the car did some crazy jostling, and when I heard the sound of shattering glass, that's when I screamed. (Sorry, Naazju. Guess that was shrill. . . .)

So we're stopped, and we're upside-down, and I look (a bit wildly) at the windsheild and at my window and take special note of the dirt clods and grass that are all I can see, and the first words out of my mouth are "We're on the ground, right?" And since that doesn't sound completely coherent, I follow immediately with "We're on the dirt? We're not in the road still, right?" Because, as I've noticed, my first impulse every time I get into a crash (I've been in three now in which I was the driver) is to GET OUT OF THE WAY of any more danger. Once I've stopped moving I'd like to stay stopped, thank you, until I am good and ready to start moving my own durn self again.

So there we are, upside-down, and I'm breathing pretty fast and hard, as might be expected. Naazju, remarkably calm in a crisis, asks me if I'm okay and I answer that "Yes, physically I am perfectly fine." Mentally, emotionally, maybe not so much. My voice is all sorts of shaky. She calmly tells me to unbuckle my seatbelt carefully/slowly, and I respond something like "Not just yet. I just need to breathe for a second." (remember the above? I ain't moving an inch until I want to. :P Also, I was quite comfortable where I was, nicely harnassed in, resting my hands on the wheel and practically able to rest my head on the ceiling.)

"Well," says Naazju, "here's something that should make you feel better." And what does she hold in front of my face but my iPod Nano, which I had lost in my car about 3 months prior. And dangit, I SEARCHED that car. With a flashlight. In the cracks. Under seats and in random holes. That stupid iPod. . . . In my head I'm pretty sure I said, upon taking the iPod from her, "HOLY FREAKING CRAP!" Out loud, I laughed hysterically for a moment before switching to a quick, equally hysterical bout of sobbing. A perfectly reasonable reaction, I would like to think.

Upon which Naazju gets to ask again whether I'm okay. I'm fine, okay? Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. Perfectly f.i.n.e. Just need to cry for a minute. Plus, as I said then, "I'm okay, it's just . . . I broke my car!" *sob*

We're both still upside-down, me because I have yet to even desire to attempt to get down, and Naazju because she somehow managed to get wrapped in her seatbelt, so even though she's unbuckled, she can't get down. She makes a few quick phonecalls from this unusual attitude, leaves some voice-mails with parents, and arranges for Kralc to come pick us up, since we're pretty sure at this point I won't be continuing the drive myself. Even after some minutes to become fully coherent again. See? Ridiculousy composed in a crisis. I mean, I'd like to think I was *relatively* calm . . . after I got my breathing under control, at least. I could answer questions, assess our current safety, move about on my own, and all that. I could even form complete sentences, though they sounded funny, all pitchy and interspersed with sudden breaths. But I was a total wreck in comparison to the utter calm of my loverly roommate over there. Which is cool. Calm in a crisis is definitely a worthy skill to own. Just makes me look bad in comparison. :P (jk, of course . . .) ;)

What finally got me to start reacting again, instead of just waiting for calm to find me, was the sudden rapid tapping at Naazju's window. Ah, they're here, I thought, because of course one of the parts of my mind was rather curious as to when another car would pull over to help us out. At one point I wondered if anyone had even seen us crash, as there were a few cars on the road but they were pretty spaced out, and that rain was kinda blinding. But they came, a nice group of people down from Iowa on vacation. As soon as I heard the rapping my brain powered on again and I turned instantly to open my door, if I could. Turns out I couldn't. :P Too much dirt in the way, plus anyway my door just didn't open again, even when they got the car turned right-side-up. But that's jumping ahead. I also unbuckled my seatbelt at around that point, or possibly a little eariler. I forget.

Anyway, they got Naazju's door open, and the first thing I think either of us said was you're basic "We're all right. No one's hurt." Get that panicky idea out of their heads right away. As it was, they were still rather anxious to get us out of the car asap, which caused them to try to tug Naazju out, despite her still being quite wrapped in the seatbelt. Which efforts choked off her air for a bit. We both tried to direct them to unwind her in the right direction, and just as someone was offering to grab a knife to cut her out, we managed to twist the right way, and she was free. Huzzah! We both got out and stood barefoot in the mud (our flip-flops had flown off in the crash), with our rescuers holding towels over our heads to keep off the last of the rain. That's right, "last of." It was barely a minute, maybe two, after we'd first hit the monstrous wall of water, and already the skies were clearing again to a friendly, frustrating blue. Ridiculous.

One of the rescuers was a cute little lady in scrubs, conveniently just on her way to work at some local hospital. Not a minute later we also had a sheriff and an EMT on the scene, both of whom happened to have been nearby and saw the crash. We sat in the squad car for a bit, one of the Iowa fellows scrounged in the remains of The Shiv (my car) to find our shoes, Naazju's purse, and my cell phone, and we both made some more calls. Mostly to parents. Naazju called Kralc again to confirm that we were safe and well, and let him know where exactly we were. (which caused its own set of confusion, as that's the point at which we figured out we'd missed an exit clear back in Green River . . . but we got it sorted out eventually.)

By the time I got off the phone with my mom there was a whole cluster of EMTs waiting to check us over, and another police officer, and not long after that came the ambulance and the tow truck. Of course long before the ambulance arrived we'd already decided we were quite all right, but they still wanted to check our vitals and everything and get us to sign a waiver and such-like. Rain's completely gone at this point. Stupid rain. I've got my phone and my shoes, thanks to whats-'is-name, and my iPod. Still hanging on to that stupid thing. Put it in my back pocket for safe keeping.

Then it's all "Are you all right? Are you sure? Were you wearing seatbelts? Were there any other passengers in the car? Who was driving?" from about seventy-five different people . . . you'd think they could coordinate a bit better, so I don't have to answer the questions over and over again . . . "How did you crash? How fast were you going? And you're sure you're okay? Were there any other people in the car? Did you have your seatbelts on?"

*Sigh.*

Then the towtruck arrived, and we got to watch it flip my car back to its usual upright and locked position. Got some lovely photos, mostly on Naazju's camera and her phone. (my camera was still in the car . . . and then we discovered that it had broken. The LCD screen has a purty great crack in it now.) the car looked surprisingly okay, after what I'd been expecting.

Naazju has more and better pics on her camera. This is just what I took on mine, which as it turns out still *takes* pictures, at least, though you can't see them on the screen . . . I'll maybe get some more pics up later.

We rode with the tow truck guy to Richfield, where we got the car open again (it had managed to close and lock itself when it got turned right-side-up . . . which didn't help any with the police officer wanting my insurance information . . . but that's a different story. And one that's taken care of now. I think. :P) We got a few of our belongings out, including the breakfast brownies to munch on, and my purse, and we went to the Burger King next door to await Mr. Shining Armor, Kralc.

He arrived, we got *everything* out of my car and into his, less one Switchfoot cd (which was in the player, and we couldn't turn the car on because the towyard people had the key, and they'd gone home, as it was a Saturday . . .), and went home. Safe and sound, and not even gonna *try* to make the tail end of that birthday party.

Remarkably (miraculously, astonishingly . . .) the only casualties of the crash, other than The Shiv itself, were my camera and four novels that sustained water damage (two paperback "Once Upon a Time" books, one Calvin and Hobbes collection, and one hardcover copy of the second Fablehaven book). Nothing else was harmed, not even Naazju's scrapbook paper. And as stated at the beginning of this most lengthy of posts, only some minor bumps and bruises on Naazju and myself.

And yes, we are ridiculously fortunate, especially considering we were traveling at something just under 75 mph at the time . . . and I certainly express lots of gratitude to that effect when I take the time to talk to God. Which I'm constantly trying to do more frequently and regularly . . . but yeah. We're all glad it wasn't worse, and we're all quite happy that Naazju and I are alive and well.

And gosh dangit, It's ridiculous and stupid and frustrating and hilarious, but I'm happy that I found my STUPID iPod.

Gah.

:P