Vacation - Part 3 - Unbelievable relations, Carhenge and the "Big Crash"

At this point in our vacation, we've been gone for 8 days - we had a wonderful High School reunion and a pretty good vacation to Mt. Rushmore.

We head back across South Dakota to Yankton - it's in the SE corner of the state. We are here for a family reunion on my Mom's side. I used to go to these reunions every summer and stayed with my 2nd cousin Dawn, and her family - I have wonderful memories of those summer trips (I saw my first girl/girl fight and I learned to drive a stick shift).

Just a little background -- my Mom's Dad's name was Rudy. He was one of 13 children. My Mom's name is Gladys and we figure she has about 50-60 first cousins (LOVE those
big catholic families). The third generation is me -- I can't even begin to think about how many of us there are.

There were 3 of the original 13 children still alive and in attendance at the reunion. In total, there was about 125 people there. Of that 125, there were 3 of us from that 3rd generation that had little girls with Down syndrome. There is NO WAY that there is not a genetic link somewhere - it's too much of a coincidence. It's really, really cool that Libby has cousins just like her!!!



















After we left Yankton, we drove thru the northern part of Nebraska as Scott has always wanted to see Carhenge, which is in Alliance, NE. It's like Stonehenge, but with cars.

We were right outside of Chadron, when it started to rain harder than I've EVER seen - I mean not rain drops, but buckets (my Mom would call it a "gully-washer"). It wasn't safe as you couldn't see anything while driving. We weren't comfortable pulling over on the right shoulder as it was VERY narrow and seemed to head down into the ditch pretty quickly. We saw a car up ahead that had pulled over on the left into someone's driveway. Scott slowed down, put on his turn signal and before he could turn, we were hit by a semi-truck - yes, an 18 wheeler.









































Our brand new, Honda Odyssey, with only 3k miles on it was sitting in the middle of a 2 lane highway and was completely im-moveable. Scott was the smart/sane one and said we had to get out right away as you couldn't see thru the rain and someone was going to hit the van again. We pulled both kids out and ran over to the car that was originally pulled over and I opened the back door and put my kids in their backseat (only in Nebraska can you feel safe in doing that with a strange car). Scott and I then stood in this cold pouring rain for the next 10+ minutes while we waited out the storm. I did go back to the van and get my purse, camera, and registration/insurance papers.

About a dozen people stopped to make sure we were OK and that the police were called - it was so nice. About an hour later, another cop car took us into town where the tow truck met us to get out some stuff for the night. Insurance was called while I was still in my wet clothes!!!

The next morning, I was able to find a rental car out of Scottsbluff, NE that would deliver it to our hotel about mid-aftenoon. We then started the LONG drive back to Denver.

And yes, we did stop by Carhenge - how could we not???























































We are all OK - should hear about the car in the next day or 2 whether it will be totalled out or not. The insurance companies are not agreeing on anything so I'm sure it will go to arbitration. (I mean really, how can it not be the trucker's fault - the gal from the car where I put my kids stepped forward as a witness saying that Scott slowed down and had his turn signal on and everything).

Chris is pretty sad about the van - he's hoping that it can be fixed - I'm hoping to trash it and get a new one as I'm a little leary of someone who can fix that bad of a car and say that there won't be any issues.

Will update on the insurance saga once more info becomes available.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our Vacation - I'm sure it will be awhile before we do it again!!!