Miko and Me: Hot To Be Home

Well, the last blog post was going to be my last post, but circumstances intervened and here I am again.

I am coming north on 494, just south of the 94 interchange. I am so close to where I store my RV, I can taste it. Almost there. Last stop before I actually get home. It is a beautiful sunny day, a little windy but nothing that this road warrior can't handle. I mean I've been here, I've been there, I've been everywhere, man.

Traffic is getting backed up – there is an accident ahead. I switch lanes – I'm cruising along. I feel a thump, sort of a drag on the RV. I don't know what it could be, but everything seems to be good, so I'm moving on.

Then somebody passes me on the right – the driver is gesticulating – telling me to move over. Well, I'm going a little slow because traffic is bad – I'll move over to the right lane when I'm good and ready. Not when some yahoo is upset because I'm going too slow.

Then somebody passes me on the left. There is a lady hanging out the passenger side window wildly motioning me to pull over and pointing at the RV. Ok, something is up. I ease over to the very small shoulder, put my flashers on and get out to see what is happening.

Holy cow – the front of my car is smoking. I run inside the RV and grab Miko – I've seen too many movies where cars blow up and I didn't want her to be in harm's way. I go up the embankment, away from the vehicles and call 911.

“911 – what is your emergency?”

“Umm – I think my car is on fire”

After getting all my particulars, we wait for emergency personnel to show up. I start with a state patrol guy and a fire chief guy. The car is really smoking now – big billowy clouds of noxious brown smoke. They try to unhook the car from the RV but everything is jammed up and they can't get it unhooked.

Then all of a sudden the whole hood of the car goes up in flames. The flames are really high and huge. About this time, the fire truck shows up. They are sort of casual about the whole thing – no running around, just going about doing their business. It takes them about five minutes to douse the flames. At this point, I'm pretty detached from the whole thing – it was sort of like - “oh well – nobody is hurt – it is amazing watching these people in action”

After it was all done – the fire inspector took down my info and a tow truck was called. My car was jam packed with personal possessions – I had unloaded most of the RV into the car in anticipation of bringing it all home. The fire fighters and sheriffs all helped unload the car and put this stuff into the RV. None of my stuff was ruined except for a smoke smell and some of the papers in the glove compartment. How lucky is that?

The tow truck arrived and Miko and I drove the remaining 10 minutes back to the RV storage place. Tony came and picked us up and brought us home. Poor Tony – in the aftermath I am a little on edge – talk about micro-managing his driving.

I'm home, everybody is ok – the insurance company has been called. I don't know what would cause the fire, I'm sure that it will become apparent once all the adjusters have figured it out. In my laywoman opinion, the car is totaled. I don't see how it could not be.

Tony said – Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance, don't you?