Speaking of the Jeep...

So there I was, minding my own business....

I took my dad over to the airport this morning so he could fly back out to the east coast for work.  Not that he was doing a whole lot a home anyway since my Mom is out of town already, but it's still kind of sad to have to fly for work on Father's Day.  But I digress...

Pretty much as soon as we hit the highway after I picked him up my gas light came on.  I knew it was low since Mister C and Master J had just gotten back from their camping trip late last night and hadn't filled the tank.  But I thought I had enough to get me there and back before the light came on.  Since I was kind of on a tight schedule, having arrived about ten minutes late to pick my dad up in the first place, I decided to get him to the airport and then stop for gas on the way back home.  But of course, once I dropped him off I knew I didn't want to get the gas right away since it's always more expensive the closer to the airport you are.  So I drove a little further down the road.  I finally saw a station that I figured was far enough away to have reasonable prices and stopped in.  This is not the interesting part of the story in case you're wondering.  No, that's the part that's next.

After I filled up I got back on the highway and continued driving towards home.  I was in the right hand lane, there was a beat up pickup truck in the middle lane in front of me, another car in the middle lane just slightly behind me and an on ramp on my right with traffic.  Up ahead, I see a huge tire tread, the kind that fall off of semi trucks on a regular basis, laying on the right side of the middle lane.  I'm thinking that it's certainly avoidable.  After all, the guy in the pickup has nobody on his left and the tire is all the way to the right side of the lane.  But no, he still proceeds dead ahead and manages to hit the tread at about 75 mph.  Which flings the tire tread up in the air and in a direct path for me.

In horrified slow motion I watch as the tread arcs towards me.  With cars on either side of me, I have nowhere to go but straight ahead.  I briefly debate slamming on my brakes but the thought occurs that maybe, just maybe it's trajectory is actually slightly over my roof.  I've been driving Mister C's Honda Civic all week.  It's low to the ground, I have clearance between my head and the tire in it.  Annnnd I'm not in that car.  I'm in my Jeep for the first time in ten days.  There's a whole lot more height in this vehicle and unfortunately for me, the trajectory of that tire tread is straight into my windshield.  

With a huge BOOM! the tread hits my windshield and goes flying over the roof.  The windshield is instantly a spiderweb of shattered glass with a basketball sized area punched in behind and just to the right of where the rear view mirror hangs.  The mirror that is now pointing at my lap.  My gps holder lands on the dashboard.  The passenger seat visor slams into the passenger door and bounces back halfway.  And tiny shards of glass rain down in my car.

And the beat up pickup truck continues on like nothing happened.  Asshat.

I immediately headed for the next exit, I had only been on the freeway for less than two miles when this happened.  As soon as I was at a stoplight, I phoned Mister C to let him know the good news of the day.  And then I drove on the surface streets all the way home to assess the damage.  

Broken windshield - check

Dented frame around windshield - check

Sadness reigning supreme - check and check

 A view from the inside....

And hey, I thought this was kind of pretty.  In a warped, sad, wtf kind of way...

And finally, it should be noted that usually Jeeps end up getting beat up on some off road trail, climbing rocks or crossing rivers.  There's no glory in getting a tire tread slammed into you at 75 mph on the highway.  Just sayin'.