update :-P

welcome to your play by play of lara's life :-P

so the deal with brother was this -- he swerved to miss a box turtle while going around a curve, and then overcompensated coming back and went off a steep shoulder... from the way he tells it though, it sounded like something in the steering went because the vehicle didn't react at all how he expected (and he's been driving it close to 3 years)....

anyhow, his car rolled off sideways and flipped, but in the process of rolling a time or two, the front tip hit the ground and made the car bounce front to back as well... he ended up upside down facing the opposite direction he had been going... luckily he doesn't have airbags (or he would've gotten majorly bruised) and luckily he had his seat belt on. he had a dodge ram charger, which looks like a truck, but with a camper attached, only there's no "cab", it's just one large vehicle... his side windows on the "camper part" completely busted, so after he unbuckled and got himself right side up again, he crawled out a broken window and cut his right elbow a little, but not bad.

apparently people saw it happen and called 911 right off, and the county first response people were there within 2 minutes. the ambulance people were amazed to see him standing and asked if he hurt anywhere, and he commented "look at my elbow, that's the extent of it... frankly i've done worse trippin over my own two feet"

apparently the brakcets the hold the engine into the frame broke, so it was beyond repair, and he could either tow it locally for cheap or tow it 3 hours to memphis for $1000... if he was gonna have to sell it to a salvage yard anyhow, he opted for the first one, so goodbye to brother's first vehicle.

a truck of scouts coming from the campsite brother had been at last night were about 15 minutes behind him, so before he even called, they had stopped (having recognized brother's truck) and helped him take out all his personal stuff and gave him a ride back home.

so thankfully he made it out with only minor injury and is just fine... unfortunately his vehicle wasn't, and he still has a few thousand to pay off on it even though he doesn't own it anymore!

....

in other news, the family went to lunch at the cupboard (quality southern restaurant closer to downtown than we usually eat) and then saw the art of the motorcycle this afternoon... dad raced through and was worried "that all you were sitting in the car mad at me" so he came back through in search of us to ask why we were taking so long (mom, ryan, and me actually read all the signs and displays as we went!)... after he made it through again, my dad filled out 2 angry comment cards that "i hate motorcycles, they're noisy, this wasn't worth my money because it was a bad choice of display"... my dad is RIDICULOUS somtimes.

even if my dad hates motorcycles, it was a very well done display. it travelled chronologically where each room corresponded to a different decade of the past 100 years, with a big display telling about the primary concerns in transportation of that decade, and then each bike was mounted on a platform with a paragraph or two written about it, and selected ones had audio commentary to go with (each person gets a hand held digital audio player to carry around with you and punch in display numbers). they had a couple bikes that were famous from various movies and a couple that belonged to elvis, borrowed from graceland :-P... they were all pretty gorgeous :-), and it was just cool to see how design changed over time both for practicality and for the demands of the particular era.... unlike my dad, i thought it was a very worthwhile exhibit.

anyhow, that's the scoop of the day... my brother was extremely fortunate it make it out of this morning in one piece, and i saw a lot of pretty motorcycles. :-)

now, dinner.

later dudes :-P