FENDER-ONLY BENDER

Remember a while back when I wrote a list singing the praises of my Expedition? Well, let's add another thing, shall we?

On Thursday afternoon, my dad flew into town for a couple of days. We piled into my Expedition with the kids and headed down to my baby bro's place to see my super cute niece (amazing how much they change in a week!) and pick up my mom. On the drive home, traffic was very much stop-and-go. At one point, the cars in front of me stopped and I did the same. But the chick behind me:

a) was not paying attention

b) was following too close

c) had it out for me and my awesome vehicle

d) is from Idaho

I like to think it was mainly option c but I'm kind of thinking what happened was a result of a combination of a, b, and d. So just after I stopped my car, we got slammed from behind by a cute little dark red Camry. I pushed as hard as I could on my brakes and turned my car to the left to avoid hitting the little Subaru wagon in front of me. I totally succeeded. Then, very much to our surprise, the Camry apparently got hit from behind by the Chevy truck following her and ended up slamming into us again, this time hooking onto my back bumper and eventually tearing free (I could hear and feel it) as it bounced backwards. How often does someone get hit by the same car twice in less than a minute? I'm thinking it's not a common occurrence and I'm pretty bummed that we had to experience it.

My back hurt for a little while after (I think mainly from the muscles tensing up so much during the whole thing) but that was all there was in terms of "injuries" and only the three vehicles were hurt. No surprise, the Camry was the worst off and the Chevy and my Expedition had the least damage.

Here's what happened to my car:

The little blue arrow is pointing to a small tear there...the only spot above my bumper that sustained any damage.

A straight-on shot of the damage to my bumper (and a bit to the tow package).

In the end, after an hour of sitting in our car and blocking the HOV lane, filling out paperwork, etc., we were back on the road and headed home. The Camry wasn't so fortunate. I guess a crushed radiator is kind of a problem...

A distant shot of the Camry...I would gotten a close-up picture of the engine (totally crunched on the one side) but didn't want to make the people feel any worse than they already did.

Final score? Expedition: 1. Other Car: 0.

Honestly, the whole thing just makes me feel grateful. Grateful that I was in a tall, sturdy vehicle that made it so that Hudson (who was sitting in the back/fold-down row) wasn't hurt. Grateful that I had my parents with me to help. Grateful that we'd said our prayers that morning. Grateful that my dad took it on himself to check on the passengers in the other vehicles and get licence and insurance information. Grateful for my car's DVD player. Grateful that my car is the only thing that was hurt.

Oh - and by the way, we have a new Christmas tree "ornament": the Toyota symbol from her front hood. Pieces of it are missing and it's cracked and damaged. I know it's not mine or even from my car. But my car pulled it off or hers, my dad found it under my tire, and she hurt my Expedition (well, kind of). Finders keepers!

P.S. If you own an Expedition, you may not ever want to take both of my parents with you in it at the same time...they were with my sister when hers was hit by a cable car in San Fransisco. Coincidence? I think not.