It's an annual trip for my family and I; we drive 1,000 miles to NE Indiana to stay on the family farm and visit for 2 weeks. This year was going to be a good year. We had ourselves a nice 27' travel trailer to stay in and had the use of my parents' beautiful 2010 Suburban 2500 to pull the trailer with. We had the trip all planned out nicely. We had the trailer packed with all the clothes and food we would need for the 2 weeks and we had some fun side-trips planned for on the way up and back as well as while we were there. It was going to be good.
It started off that way. We left home on June 1st. Our first stop was Pops in Arcadia, OK. Pops is a modern Route 66 icon. With food, fuel, hundreds of flavors of soda for sale and a giant 66' tall soda bottle out front, Pops embodies the essence of The Mother Road.
Just a mile down the road from Pops, is the classic Route 66 landmark of the Arcadia Round Barn. Things were slowly deteriorating as it was raining by the time we arrived at the Barn.
Just outside of Tulsa, my parents who are following behind us in their motorhome, called to have me pull over and check the trailer tires. I then realized that I had felt a tire let go, but just wasn't sure what it was I felt. After it went, I noticed the trailer feeling heavy. It was raining and after the call, I looked in my mirrors and could see the tire spray looking strange on one side. I pulled over to look, and sure enough, a tire was gone. I went up to the next exit and pulled over to change it.
The spare wasn't going to last very long either, so we stopped in the nearest town and had 2 new tires put on the trailer.
We got back on the road and headed for dinner at the World's Largest McDonald's in Vinita, OK.
Due to the delays caused by the tire, we did not make very good time this day. We cancelled a couple of other small stops we wanted to make and called it a day early, stopping in Carthage, MO.
Little did we know that this would be the last happy picture I ever took of the Suburban and trailer.
The next day started out alright. We hit the road and were making decent time for a while. My dad has a bad back, though, so long stretches of driving can really make him feel bad, so stops were fairly often. When you have 4 adults, 3 kids and 2 dogs to round up between 2 vehicles, a quick stop just does not happen. A simple pee break was taking 30 minutes this day.
We stopped to top off the tanks in Marshall, IL. While stopped, my 2 boys decided to ride in the motorhome with my parents, leaving myself, my wife and 2 year-old daughter in the Suburban. It made for a much quieter ride for sure.
A little before hitting Indianapolis, my parents called to say one of my boys had to pee, so we pulled off at an exit and stopped so he could run back into the bathroom. They called and said they were ready to roll.
I drove up to the stop sign and stopped. We were just going to go straight across and get back onto the Interstate. I looked. It was clear both ways. I started across the intersection. I'm just across the first lane when I look back to my left again and see a car barrelling over the rise to my left. All I had time to do was say "Oh f__k!" and it was all over.
My first thoughts were that I just didn't stop long enough and look well enough to see the car coming. It was 8:15 pm. It was dusk and it had rained shortly before and was still overcast. It was a black car with no lights on. I was blaming myself for not seeing it. I was pissed...at myself to begin with. I was screaming and cussing and banging the steering wheel. My wife was flipping out. She thought I was screaming because I was hurt. I told her to check on the baby and move so I could climb across to the passenger side and get out.
After a quick assessment, my wife, daughter and I were all just fine. No blood. Nothing broken.
My wife had been reading a book. She didn't know what had happened at all. She heard me scream before the hit and then though I had hit a pole or something somehow. She didn't realize we were in a wreck until she walked around and saw the other car.
My parents behind us in their motorhome didn't see it either. When we stopped at the stop sign, they had turned around to talk to the boys. My dad turned around and started going and then noticed my trailer sideways in the intersection. They had no clue how it got that way. I was the only one at this point who had a clue. I saw it coming. I don't remember, but my wife says I let go of the wheel and put my arms across my chest like Danica Patrick to brace for the impact.
It all happened so quickly, and yet so slow. From the time I first saw the car coming, I was pissed. I really thought I screwed up. I kept wondering why I didn't see the car when I was at the stop sign. The more I thought it through, though, the more it started really coming together in my head. He wasn't there when I stopped. The road he was travelling on had a 45 mph speed limit. From the time I saw him at the top of the bridge until the time of impact was a split second. The guy was moving fast. He hit me at full speed. He did not let off. He did not swerve. He never touched his brakes. He just plowed through me.
By the time I got around to check on the other driver, passers-by had stopped and were tending to him. I looked and noticed that he was sitting somewhat slumped in his seat. The car was a 1994 Nissan Sentra. It had those semi-automatic seat belts where the shoulder harness automatically comes over, but you have to buckle the lap belt. He had no lap belt on.
Only when the cops in charge and a few other people came up to me and made sure that I knew I was not at fault did I start to quit blaming myself for it all and really start to see what happened.
Probably 30 minutes or so after the accident, the other driver died while still in his car. The paramedics couldn't do anything for him.
The cops found open alcohol containers in his car. He was a 53 year-old man living at home with his parents. The State Police said that his license had been suspended for life because of DWIs and that he was basically a ticking time bomb. The officer in charge of the scene was actually on his way to set of a DWI roadblock when he got the call. He was going to set up down the road that he had come from. He had gotten by before they could get set up.
In these types of deals, it always seems that it's the drunk that walks away while the victims end up dead or crippled for life. I am very thankful that it came out the other way in this case.
I truly feel for the guy's family and friends. It's not their fault. But I have no sympathy at all for him. I have never been a drinker. I can count on one hand how many sips of alcohol I've had in my life. I've always been happy to be a designated driver for my friends. I have absolutely no respect for those who drink and drive. There is never an excuse. This guy had been doing this for years. Luckily his decision to get behind the wheel drunk only took his own life and nobody else's. I just hate that his decision ruined a vacation for my family.
We unloaded everything from our trailer into my parents' motorhome and got a room for the night. The next morning we came out and noticed a flat tire on one of the rear duals. Great. We pull across the street to the gas station to air it up. As I'm airing it up, the tire blows. Luckily it was the inner tire or it would have been my face. We called the tow company from the night before to come change it for us. The driver shows up, full of sympathy for our continuing bad situation. The driver was telling us that his phone had been blowing up all night from the locals calling him to ask about the accident. They all asked him if it was the guy that hit us and named him. Once he confirmed that, they all wanted to make sure we were all ok.
There were some seriously good people in that area. We had a couple offer us to use their house to stay in and unload our stuff if we needed since they were going to Michigan for a week. The State Police Officer and his partner in charge of the scene came to help us unload the trailer until they got another call.
We got the tire changed on the motorhome and resumed on with our trip. We arrived at the family farm, where my wife and kids and I got to stay in a very small pop-up trailer that belonged to my aunt's brother-in-law and we stored all of our stuff in a small motorcycle trailer. Enterprise in Auburn, IN, near where we were staying, hooked us up with a 2012 Town & Country rental so we wouldn't be stranded for the duration of our stay. They gave us a better vehicle with several extras without charging extra for it. Minus the $30/day State Farm covered for us, it only cost us $15/day.
We stayed our time in Indiana and got to get around and do some of the things we had planned. We left on June 13th to head back home. We were ready to get back, so the plan was to drive straight through with no overnight stops. My wife, daughter, youngest son and I were driving the van, which was loaded to the hilt. My oldest son stayed back with my parents who were leaving the next day.
On the way back, we stopped at the scene of the accident so I could take some more pics in the daylight.
This was my view from where I stopped looking in the direction the car came from.
Standing at the point of impact and looking the direction the car came from, there is a noticeable lack of any sort of skid marks approaching the scene.
The only tire marks were left by the Suburban sliding sideways after it was hit.
After checking out the scene, we stopped at the tow yard to check out the vehicles and say our final good-byes to our beloved Suburban and trailer. Conveniently, the towing company was located at the intersection where it happened.
And this is what hit us.
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