"Alaska is where cars go to die"

At least that's what my husband said. And after this week, I certainly agree with him.

When we first moved here we noticed that a lot of people have auto body damage. Dented fenders, broken lights, cracked windshields, etc. I figured they just weren't careful enough. Then the past week happened to me.

Tuesday night, my dear friend Heather backed into my poor Cavalier, resulting in $3325 of damage. I know it doesn't look that bad. I guess the parts are hard to find for that thing. We're going to talk to an adjuster Monday or Tuesday and find out what our options are. The car itself is only worth about half that!

But wait, it gets better. The same night, I slipped and fell on the ice, breaking the LCD display screen on my phone, and my dog Esther, went into heat. Lovely timing since her dog Jr. isn't fixed either!

Wednesday things went alright. Thursday, I decided to give the truck a try since the Cavalier was going in for it's damage estimate the next morning. So I brushed off the 8 or so inches of snow, started her up, and took her for a spin around the block to see how she'd handle on the ice. I told myself if she slipped at all, I'd put her right back and we'd just go with my banged up Cavalier. So I took the corners at 25 mph instead of 15 to 20, and slammed the brakes to check the traction. All went well! So I loaded up for the afternoon, put on my gloves and off I went for the afternoon's work errands.

No sooner did I round the first corner of our neighborhood did I begin to slide. Just as I felt the car begin to recover, I lost total control, crossed the road, and nose-dived into a deep ditch. Photographed below:

Yeah, good times. That impact was not fun let me tell you. Everything in the truck went flying forwards. Including my cup of hot coffee. Yay.

After calling the police and determining they wouldn't really be able to do anything, I called my boss to tell him what had happened and that I wouldn't be running those errands after all. He ended up coming over to see if he could pull me out, but he decided he couldn't. So, it was time to call the insurance company. They set me up with a tow truck who showed up 20 minutes later with the fire department in tow. It seemed a little dramatic to me. The turned on their lights and blocked traffic so that the tow truck could back me out. At this point I had gone back to my house just a block away, and got the Cavalier so I could follow the tow truck to the auto body shop (conveniently where my appointment for the Cavalier was already scheduled the next morning!). When the fire department saw the damage on THAT car, I had to convince everyone it was from a previous accident and NOT involved. Good grief. "Yeah, it hasn't really been my week", I said.

So now my poor truck is in the shop getting fixed, and my cavalier is sitting out front all banged up until we figure out how to fix it without "totaling" it. What a week! Thank goodness Brian was WONDERFUL about the whole thing. As soon as he knew I was ok, he went straight to comforting me and helping me formulate a plan of action. I love my man!

I can't say he was entirely wrong though with his comment. We've put our cars through alot, and only now have we had real problems. Maybe Alaska really is where cars go to die. Haha.... then again... everything seems to take quite a beating up here.