An accident on the way to St. Augustine

We had a lovely breakfast at Rae Rae's, then had time for a quick trip to the Marion Market. You can't see much of the Marion Market quickly, so we just walked through one area - enough time for Janice and I to each discover something we had to have! Then we went back to the house where they loaded up their van and drove east, to St. Augustine, to join the rest of their family on vacation at the beach.

That was the plan. But a few minutes after they left, they called us. Someone had sideswiped their vehicle and it wasn't drivable. We hurried over to where they were to find, thank God, they were OK, but the car was not. The front left quarter was smashed and the driver's door wouldn't open. The driver's window had shattered into a million pieces and Lance and Janice were covered in tiny bits of glass, from their hair to inside their shoes. Lance got a gash on the back of his left hand and his left arm got hit with enough glass that it looked like a road rash from a fall. The paramedics checked them over and asked if they wanted to go to the hospital. But without severe injuries, they preferred to avoid spending hours in an ER room. So we transferred everything from their van to the back of our Jeep, and we all sat inside the Jeep to wait for the State Police to show up. The Sherriff's department was already there, but they didn't seem to think they could do anything. Eventually the State Police showed up, talked to both parties, checked both vehicles, checked the side marks on the road, and still wouldn't take a position on who was at fault! It was obvious from the damage to both cars and the skid marks that the other car had crossed the center line, hit Lance's car, then swerved back. But the woman driving the other car said that Lance hit her; then she changed her story to say she had swerved to avoid hitting an animal. She had insurance but her license had been suspended for unpaid tickets. So there is no telling how all that will end up, but the important thing was that Lance and Janice were not seriously injured. But they were badly shaken by the experience so as soon as the police released everyone, we took them back home to apply bandages to the external injuries and beer to the internal ones. We were all pretty exhausted by the drama and stress, so for dinner we picked up fried chicken from Publix and made an early night of it.