What happened: The Joe Friday Version

First off, I want to thank everyone for your support and love.  It's been a weird few days and your words of encouragement have kept me sane.  Thank you.  

I'm still piecing together all that's happened.  I feel the need to write down so many things, just to get them off my mind, to put them somewhere.  Here's my first installment of that process.  It's the "Joe Friday" edition - just the facts.  Future editions will focus on "icky emotions", "what's next", and "just what in the hell is Burning Man and why did you destroy your Airstream to get there?".  

Last Monday, my brother Mick, our friend Farhad, Homer, Max and I set out for Burning Man 2010.  Our trip would take us from Owensboro, KY to Black Rock City, in northern Nevada.  Edna (my faithful Ford Expedition) would lead the way with Marge (my '65 Airstream) bringing up the rear.  As you may know, I've spent the last 20+ months rebuilding Marge from the ground up.  There was still much work to be done on her but she would provide a good home for us, both on our trip west and on the playa at Burning Man.  Here we are, fired up to begin our mission.  

Our trip was uneventful for the first couple of days - a Walmart parking lot in central Missouri the first night and then a sketchy campground on Tuesday night.  We rolled out of St. Joseph, MO Wednesday afternoon, hell-bent to see some old guys carved into a hillside.

We drove all night and arrived at Mt. Rushmore just after dawn.  We did the "Clark Griswold" tour and loaded up into Edna to continue our journey to Black Rock City.  We inhaled a yummy meal at Sonic, Farhad took the wheel, Mick settled into the front passenger seat and I loaded my lazy ass into the back of Edna to take a nap with Homer and Max.

Enter "the dryer".  As I mentioned before, I began to wake up as I felt Edna violently swerving side-to-side.  Tires were screeching and I could hear metal straining to keep Marge and Edna connected.  Then the roof turned into the floor as we flipped over and the true violence began.  Edna landed on her feet - it appears she did one full flip.  Airbags were everywhere.  Marge ended up on her roof, flat as a pancake.

Once the dryer stopped, everything is still kind of a blur for me.  I heard voices asking if I was okay.  Homer and Max were yelping.  Max bolted out the shattered window and ran off into the desert, not sure what had just happened but damn sure he wanted to get the hell away from it.

We spent the next 4-5 hours at this location, baking in the Wyoming sun.  Turns out we were in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, population zero.  We found out that the closest dot on the map (New Castle) was about 45 miles away.  Gillette, the only city of any size nearby, was about 70 miles away.  While several cars stopped to help us, it took about 45 minutes for the police to arrive.

Once The Law showed up, the gears slowly ground into motion.  EMTs, tow trucks, etc were summoned.  Most would be coming from Gillette so it would be a while before they arrived.  We walked around in a daze, processing everything - the events, the scene, the repercussions.

Once the friendly and helpful folks from Manning's Wrecker arrived, the literal heavy lifting began.  First order of the day - disconnect Marge and Edna.  This was not as easy as you might think (Nice work Dan Mark - the safety chains you welded held up).  Next - strap Marge's carcass together so she could be returned to her feet.  Once upright, Marge kinda bounced back to her normal shape, albeit with some gaping wounds.  

The Manning team then dragged Marge and Edna's carcasses onto their flatbeds, we gathered as much of the loose debris as we could and then loaded up in one of the tow trucks for the hour ride to Gillette.  Dwayne, our driver, was very friendly and narrated the trip.  However, we didn't have much to say.  Speaking for myself, I was still wondering "what the fuck just happened?".

I'm gonna stop here as I need to join Farhad and Mick at the junk yard where we'll be finishing up the salvage work on Marge before they head west to the playa.  I will be staying behind to work out the details with my insurance company and coordinate shipping of what we salvage back to Kentucky.  I hope to head to Burning Man as soon as I can get some comfort on these and a few other fronts.  

I'm not looking forward to the salvage work.  I feel like I'm going to harvest organs from a much loved family pet, one that I spent every waking hour with for the last 2 years.  Mick and Farhad have done an amazing job of quietly handling this gruesome work, allowing me to process things more before my "visitation" with the corpse.  It's gonna suck but I feel like I have to go there so I can close this chapter in my life.   For the last 20+ months, Marge has been the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing on my mind when I fall asleep.  I'm going to leave part of my soul in that pile of shredded aluminum, steel and wood.

Thanks for all your thoughts, kind words and prayers.  I'm humbled by the support I have received from my family and friends.  I'll be writing more as I find words and time.  My brother is also blogging about our adventure and he truly has a gift for capturing the emotions involved - facing potential death, loss and grieving - http://minglefreely.blogspot.com/

Hugs and kisses to all.