Red light, green light, brake light, crunch

So, I ruined a 10 year streak today.


For the first time in 10 years, I was involved in a car accident while I was behind the wheel—though it wasn’t my fault. I got rear-ended at a stop light. It wasn’t a big deal, or at high speed. I honestly thought there wouldn’t be any damage. But when I got out of my car and looked at my rear bumper, a piece of the other car’s license plate frame was embedded into it. The offending screw had poked right through the flimsy fiberglass and left a finger-sized hole. It was almost comical. Almost.

Oh well, exchange information, get insurance reference numbers, and go about my day.

Still, I couldn’t help thinking about my other accidents. See, having a spotless record for 10 years is nice and all—I haven’t even gotten a ticket in that time, though I have been towed once for parking where I wasn’t supposed to—but it doesn’t automagically mean that I’m a better driver than the rest of the world. I like to think that it does. I like to think that I’m situationally aware, conscientious, responsible, cautious and yet decisive when needed. I fancy myself a better-than-average driver, but I’m sure that most of the population feels the same way.

I wasn’t always a safe and responsible driver. 10 years ago I had 2 major accidents and 2 tickets in the space of 4 years, so that wasn’t such a good time for me. I’m a bit of a local legend around my high school as the idiot that crashed into the Mariner’s Cove sign… and part of the reason that there are now 2 Mariner’s Cove signs on either side of the entrance instead of one in the middle. Infamy, in this case, is not better than obscurity.

The last time I seriously rear-ended someone was in my 2000 Plymouth Neon—and I didn’t so much rear-end as try to put the hood of my car underneath the bed of the truck in front of me. Not, you know, on purpose, but that’s what happened. Same situation as today actually. Sitting at a light, a few cars back. The light turns green, traffic starts to move, I hit the gas, gently, but just as we’re getting up to speed something happens up ahead & everyone stops… well, everyone but me that is. I didn’t see all the red lights, and so had less time, and space, in which to stop, and that’s how I wound up totaling a brand-new car and being so very thankful for insurance, because a $250 deductible was much preferable to the $10,000 repair bill.

I suppose I learned my lesson. I think I’ve just been lucky, and today, a little of that luck ran out. Let’s see if I can manage another 10 years without incident. If all the other drivers on the road will agree to help me out here, I think I might just make it.

Escape

I have a yearning for a road trip.  Or a cruise.  Or just a vacation trip.  A get-away to somewhere not here.

Some friends drove Rt 66 last summer, and that sounds like fun, although if I'm gonna drive a fabulous stretch of road, I pick Hwy 1 up the California coast and then just keep going until I make it to Canada. I wouldn't mind seeing Vancouver or Toronto.  I'd go back to Montreal again too, and not just for brown gravy on french fries.

I want to go back to Yellowstone, and Yosemite, and visit Oregon & Washington.  I've never been to New England, so I'd like to cross those states off my list.  I wouldn't mind crossing the rest of the Hawaiian islands off my list too.  I've got 3 of 7 so far.  I'd like to visit New York City... just to say I have.  I want to visit Florida again, now that I know people I like live there. 

I want to visit England (now that I might actually remember it) & Scotland, and the rest of Ireland.  I want to go to France and embarrass myself further with my poor French.  I want to swim in the Mediterranean.  I want to see if olives taste better in Greece the way Guinness tastes better in Dublin.  I want to go to Rome and Venice and Prague and Berlin and Moscow and Cairo.  I want to go to Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Iceland.  Of course, I need to find a good native guide or learn some choice phrases in lots of languages.   Someday, I'd like to go to Jerusalem, and visit the sites of the early churches, maybe while eating olives.  I want to visit all the other hemispheres and more than 2 continents.  Go to Buenos Aries and Sydney.  I want to visit the places that are fun to say: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, the Himalayas, the Maluku Islands. 

This isn't like a bucket list or anything, just an informative speculation, so that in the unlikely scenario that I become stupidly wealthy and decide to travel around to world for weeks at a time, you know where to look for me.  Pretty much everywhere.  I want to look at volcanos and pyramids and walk crazy paths in crazy jungles and get bit by crazy bugs carying crazy diseases... ok, so maybe only the walking and jungle parts of that are things I want. 

My family used to take road trips, sometimes to places we would camp, but often to fun places like Reno and Tahoe and Grandma's House.  I remember reading and listening to music, and sometimes talking, and lots of looking out the window.  I want to do that again.

For right now, I'll poke around on Google Earth and plot out a trip around the world.