Our Vacation - Day 7 (and 8)

Let's see... where were we...
Oh yes! The clock was about to strike twelve...



Happy New Year!

Driving, driving, and more driving... that's how we spent the first day of 2007.

We chose to sleep in this morning (all the way to 9 am, woohoo!), and then proceeded to pack up the hotel room and make it out the door by checkout time... which was 12 noon. We weren't exactly fast, and it was probably mostly my fault (oh how I was dragging!), but it's ok... it was the plan. Really.

We were on the road at 12:30 after fueling up the car and making a return pit stop to the hotel so The King could make use of the facilities.

After we had been on the road for about an hour and a half, we saw that a vehicle had rolled over and was off the road. No emergency vehicles were present, so we stopped to see if we could help. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we stopped, we really weren't prepared to help except for the fact that we had a cell phone and a very basic emergency kit. The King made it to the scene before me and put in a call to 9-1-1. The accident had been reported by several other people already, but King Isepik was able to give them a few more details which I assume were helpful. I never saw anything, but the King was not so lucky. I'll spare you the details of what he told me, and I'm assuming that he probably spared me some details of what he saw.

I found a reference to the accident here, and I've quoted the pertinent part below:

A roll-over van crash on I-15 near Hodge Road, about 15 miles south of Barstow, killed two — a 44-year-old woman and an 11-year-old girl — on Monday afternoon.

Four others were injured — two critically, said Officer Greg Smoak of the California Highway Patrol.

Helicopters transported two survivors with major injuries to Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Ambulances transported the two with minor injuries to Barstow Community Hospital.

At around 1:54 p.m. a van carrying a family of Mexican nationals northbound on I-15 lost control and rolled over to the right shoulder near Hodge Road, Smoak said. Five of the six passengers were thrown from the vehicle.

Thankfully the girls were asleep at the time... a blessing... because I was haunted by depressing thoughts for most of the remainder of our trip. We were experiencing a lot of wind, and I just kept hoping that we would be fortunate enough to withstand the winds and not have our vehicle roll over. I just wanted to make it home safe.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. A few stops here and there, rough wind, but nothing really noteworthy. We arrived home safe and sound at about 1:00 am (hence Day 8).

Our vacation was wonderful, but it is so good to be home. I really missed my bed!