Eve of departure from Oregon heat

Tomorrow morning we're all making our way down to Southern California - slowly - meeting up with Gary and Luca on Sunday afternoon.

Jo and I are heading to the Lake Tahoe area for a couple of nights whilst the Lesinas are taking the coastal route down. I think we're all looking forward to getting away from this oppressive heat for a week or so - it'll be more than 20 F cooler in Newport Coast - high 70's/low 80's we believe.

Scott seems to be recovering OK from Sunday's incident and the insurers seem to be playing ball so far, so it looks like they're not going to come out of it badly financially.

This week, Cade's been at pre-season football conditioning for the last 3 days. Thankfully, he's got the early morning slot so it's not as hot as those who have to do it in the full heat of the day later on. I've been running him and his pal Chris in at 7:30 am.

I've had a couple of cycles this week and this morning, Braeden and I played 9 holes at Applegate GC:

He was a bit rusty to start with but he improved as the round went on. You can't see it, but this was a particularly good drive of his at the 4th hole (he's a leftie):

The daily routine to escape the heat is to jump in the pool late afternoon when there's a bit of shade from the neighbour's hedges. It's been so hot that even Jo went in yesterday - quietly on her own:

Sunday shock

The day started off with a bang - literally. Scott was driving to work, minding his own business crossing the first set of lights at nearby Dowell Rd, when all of a sudden he was banged in the rear, side-on, by a guy who was running a red light.

Scott was in his big truck and the other guy was in a Subaru, but the point of impact was underneath the trailer half of Scott's truck and we think that Scott's rear wheels then mounted the Subaru's bonnet and Scott's truck, with its higher centre of gravity was flipped over - it rolled one and a half times, ending up on its roof, with Scott hanging upside down.

Scott managed to release the seat belt and then kick out his side window and crawl out the truck. Lucy got a call from him a few minutes later and she and I rushed round. By the time we got there, the police and medical teams were all there - all we could see was blue lights flashing at first, but, as we got closer, the horror of the scene was all too obvious. Fortunately, Scott was standing there, grinning and waving at us, apparently none the worse for wear. He had  a few cuts and no doubt some bruises will start to appear over the next few days, but his adrenalin was keeping him going.

Looking at the scene, with both vehicles now written off, it's a wonder that both Scott and the other driver came out of it, largely unscathed. The police have charged the other driver, but, amazingly, nobody was breathalysed. It may have been shock, but the other driver appeared to us to be not quite with it.

The medics checked them both over and all seemed to be well, and soon the recovery trucks arrived. The Subaru was upright and was easy to get on the back of the pick-up, but Scott's truck had to be righted in two careful manoeuvres.

Scott's sister Laramie and her boyfriend Rick were soon on the scene, but once all the paperwork was done, Scott wanted to walk the short distance home and Lucy went with him, whilst I took Lucy's car back. Scott's Dad, Bill drove over from Crescent City and we took both Bill's and Rick's trucks over to the recovery vehicle's yard to get all the stuff out from the back of the truck - Scott hadn't had a chance to empty it after their weekend camping in N. California. There was a quad bike and a dirt bike in the back, along with lots of other stuff, but most of it seems OK, apart from some fairly minor damage.

Here's just one shot of Scott's damaged truck, now upright in the breaker's yard:

Had it been left hand drive, who knows what the consequences might have been?