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I never made it down to Key West, in spite of all intentions to do so.
I worked Thursday night, 12 hour shift, came home Friday morning, finished packing, and caught a 3 hour nap. At about 1pm, we started driving south, me, Foamy and my husband, with my husband (who had gotten a full nights' sleep) in the driver's seat.
We got as far as the top of the Keys, heading into Key Largo, and then got caught in the middle of a five-car pile-up in a construction zone. The traffic was stopped to wait for construction traffic for a long time, about 20-30 minutes, and I guess people got impatient. Traffic started moving in fits and starts. We were stopped when the 4th car behind us, a Ford SUV, plowed into the Mercedes in front of him and started a chain reaction. (The driver of the Ford told us it was his fault, but I don't think he told the police that, as he doesn't appear to have been given a ticket - we'll know for sure when we get the accident report.) The truck behind us plowed right over the bumper of our little Mazda Protege and crushed the trunk cover. We hit the SUV in front of us, which sustained a small scratch, but dented our hood considerably.
The accident took place about 3:30pm. We waited 2 hours and 15 minutes in the hot sun for the highway patrol to come and interview everyone and write out the accident report. While we were waiting, the driver of the truck behind us yanked off the hanging cosmetic part of our bumper and stuffed it in our trunk. He then produced two pieces of rope and tied down our trunk cover and our hood, so that we could drive home. He also told the woman in front of us, who was annoyed at the waiting, that she could be annoyed all she wanted that we had hit her, but it wasn't our fault, it was the fault of the guy in back.
When the police was finished with eveyone, and the last 2 cars were towed away, we determined that our car would run - in fact, the mechanics of the car weren't damaged at all - and we turned around and drove home. We had just enough time to throw together a bean and rice salad for dinner before the start of the Jewish Sabbath, and then collapse from exhaustion.
All in all, a depressing weekend. It looks like I will have to come up with a new car, and it will be a problem to get to work in the meantime. My car was so old anyway, a 1991, I am sure the insurance company will total it rather than fix it. And we just put $1000 worth of repairs into it - might as well have flushed the money down the toilet.
So much for my weekend in Key West... "Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?"<i></i>
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