This Is My Car

Or, rather, my family's nonexistant one.
One of the many reasons I haven't written in here since the beginning of the month was because I wasn't here at all last week. We, my family and I, were all set out to go on vacation last Sunday. Our plan was to go to Chestertown, Lake Placid and then Old Forge to do some hiking, kayaking and other awesome things we like to do in the Adirondacks. We have to go through Utica to get where we were going and then continue on route 8 in the direction of Speculator.
Well, we hit the West Canadas and stopped at a picnic spot on West Canada Creek about midday (maybe 1:00) to have lunch. After lots of pictures and lovely turkey sandwiches, we went further down the turn-off road to a possible hiking spot. We all decided we were just a little too tired to hike four miles round trip, so we turned around to rt. 8 and went on our way.
It wasn't twenty minutes later that we turned around a left curve to see a long stretch of road and this car pulling hastily back into a line of about seven. That car had cut in front of a track (Ford) that was pulling a boat on his trailer.
That threw the truck out of control...which sent it fishtailing across the highway. Once we saw that, my dad slowed right down, pulled off the highway and into the grass.  Sooner than we could think, we saw the truck wildly swerving to the left... and then... straight into our left side.
Honestly, it was so fast that I had no time to think. I really thought it would miss us because, you know, things always worked out that way. But, no, I realized it was coming for us when it was about a foot away from the side of the car. We all braced, flinched or both as it drove us into the weeds.
I don't remember hearing anything really, except the impact and the windows blowing out.
When we were stopped, Mom checked to see if we were all ok, and then we got out of the car (note: we were informed later that it is a bad idea to do that).  Mostly, we were cut up from glass and bruised. Dad had the worst of it right under his ribs. The truck driver immediately got out of his truck to ask if we were alright and to see if we needed an ambulance.

The passer was nowhere to be seen. Grr.

Fast forward to when the ambulance came; we were all put in precautionary neck braces and taken all the way back to Utica. Our vacation was going pretty poorly, but we were more concerned about each other at that point. An hour later, we were wheeled into St. Luke's hospital and cleaned up. We were all in shock, which was probably good because it bore the blunt of hearing that Dad was going into surgery for a splenectomy, but bad because our minds were still set on "Ok, so we'll have to cancel the hotel tonight, but maybe tomorrow we can go on our way."
Eventually we figured out the car was taken to Speculator, so we went and cleaned it out the next day. Seeing our things back at the hostpital, the nurses jokingly said we were the most prepared accident victims they'd ever seen. And soon, the shock wore off to a point that we realized we had to cancel all of vacation.
One week later, last Saturday, we came home from Utica after staying with my Aunt and Uncle, at a hotel, and with my mom's cousin. Dad was all stapled up (turns out he could keep his spleen, yay!),-and the rest of us just weary from the tiring previous days.

I'm definitely still feeling it, but we're all a lot better. Several people commented to us that maybe it happened for a reason, and I agree that it's a possibility. Maybe it was saving us from a more terrible accident down the road, or maybe it's the cause for a beneficial effect. I suppose we'll never really know, and all we can do is be really thankful for how it turned out. It could certainly be a whole lot worse!

Happy July!

Finally, summer is here!

     Okay, so it's officially been summer since June 21st, but this weekend really hit things off for me. This month is THE month of summer. There's Independence Day festivities, our town holds its Lumberjack Festival, the weather is hot and several flowers are blooming. Kids don't have to worry about school and seemingly everyone takes a vacation around this time.
     What I like most about summer is the opportunities to be outside. It's warm out, and I enjoy wearing dresses, shorts and skirts. I like taking pictures of flowers and leaves and things as well as just going outside for walks or trips to the state park. Like I said, last weekend was really great for me, and want to know why? It's because I spent most of it outside.
     My grandparents own a little piece of land out in the middle of the woods, a couple miles out of town. It takes quite a while to get there, mostly because the road you travel in on is completely dirt and rocks and you have to drive about 10 mph in order to keep from bouncing up and down too much. Anyway, they built a simple cabin out there and invited my sister and I to sleep over the night before our Independence Day family get together. 
     That first day was kind of cool- around 70 degrees- and after helping unpack the vehicles, my sis and I went around to the stone wall to search for salamanders. Just like that, we caught a black one with white spots that was covered in a slime that resembled Elmer's Glue. The slime made it kind of hard to catch him/her and it took some good scrubbing to get it off our fingers, but it was worth the pictures we got. We returned him/her to the stone wall and moved on into the woods to look under logs and more rocks. There we found mostly slugs, one Red-Backed Salamander and a toad.
     For the rest of the day, we walked around, got our bunks ready for bed and did crossword puzzles. After a delicious steak and potato dinner courtesy of Grandpa, we scratched off a couple lotto tickets and then went to bed.
     The next day we woke up, and had breakfast. Seeing as there no electricity up there, it's understandable that there was no toaster; I instead toasted my cinnamon raisin bagel over the fire, and it was simply fabulous. I then went inside with the others to get ready to welcome the rest of the family. When everyone was there we started one of the best annual meals in the world. First out were the shrimp and drunken shrimp, then was oysters rockefeller, then chicken, clams, macaroni salad, crescent rolls, and fruit salad. It was all delicious, and by dinnertime I only had room for a grilled hotdog (actually, I didn't, but I made room because it looked so good). A couple walks in the woods followed and we just visited until it was dark- and time to go home.
     And that's just one of the reasons I love summer so much. All the fresh air and good spirits. I felt so fresh after coming home, despite missing a shower that morning. Afterwards, we just couldn't help but go back outside to look at the stars. It was one of those super-clear nights when you can almost make out every one of the billions of stars in the milky way- they're not just a cloudy swath in the sky- and we even saw a few shooting stars!
     Oh it was truly the best weekend I've had in awhile! I can't wait to see what the rest of this season brings!