Hit and Run vacation starters

Getting ready for vacations can always be stressful. You worry about packing everything, you wind up missing something (sometimes, even a whole kid, a la "Home Alone"), you oversleep, you get a late start, you hit unexpected traffic getting there, your flight gets delayed, etc, etc... Seems like travel plans are ripe arenas for Murphy's Law to work its magic.

Today (Sunday) was no exception.

At roughly 6:30 in the morning, a drunk driver came barreling down the quiet street that winds through our apartment complex, slamming into a couple of cars in the process-- including Allan's. 20 minutes later, Allan headed out the door, his car keys in hand, and stopped in his tracks, puzzled by the crookedness of his car. "That's funny," he thought to himself, "I don't remember parking so badly last night!". It was only when he approached the car that he noticed something was amiss with his bumper, and a trip around to the back of the car revealed the extent of the damage. He came back upstairs to exchange his keys for my car keys and took my car (which was parked safely in our carport, away from the main traffic road). All traces of sleep gone by now, I got up, got dressed, and phoned the police to file a report.

The sheriff arrived in 10 minutes and took down my information. That's when the drama really started to unfold as pieces started to be put together. Initially, the sheriff and one of my neighbors traipsed through the remainder of the parking lot, examining cars, when they came upon one with a smashed driver's side front. Less than an hour later, after all my info had been taken and the sheriff and his colleagues were taking photos and other measurements of the "crime scene", that very car came driving along the street! As I watched from the living room window, the cops stopped the car and pulled the driver out, putting his hands behind his back as they frisked him. He seemed cooperative, they got his info, and after a while, they let him go. I later learned (especially after seeing his car myself) that this wasn't our guy, as initially thought. The damage on his car did not match that of the back of Allan's car, it was clearly very old-- the exposed metal was rusted. But it made for an interesting morning!

Throughout the morning, as the rest of the neighbors started waking up and going about their day, the car got plenty of gawkers. And no wonder-- if you've seen the photos, you'll see how far the debris from the crash stretched along the rest of the parking spaces! Then I noticed one guy in particular taking a keen interest in Allan's car, even taking pictures. A neighbor joined him, and, figuring out whose car it was, came up to our apartment to let us know. Turns out this highly interested guy ALSO had his car smashed into this morning, apparently not only damaging the back, but pushing it forward into a pole! I passed on the name of the sheriff I had spoken to this morning, and the guy evidently contacted him.

Just as we were getting ready to leave for our trip, the same sheriff dropped by again, with an update: they had found the guy they were very sure did this, but didn't have anything concrete to be able to tie him to our car yet, since there were no eyewitnesses. But since the guy had a history of DUIs and wrecking things in his path (such as the electrical boxes in his own apartment complex), they took away his car. And they evidently not only knew this guy's rap sheet, but knew him "personally", as the cop we spoke with told us he had an idea of who in our apartment complex this guy was visiting.

And so, with 4 hours of sleep and plenty of adrenaline from the morning's activities, we started our long drive to Vegas. What a way to start a vacation!

If you haven't yet seen the pictures, click here.