Ody got rear-ended yesterday. Katherine was driving, and was hit by a driver going too fast and following too close while she stopped at a stop light. Anyone could’ve been in front of this driver; simply, Katherine was the unlucky person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Katherine handled the accident incredibly well. Without getting into too many details, she navigated working with the people who rear-ended Ody, figured out how to get a police report, found the necessary documents, all just minutes after getting rear-ended. Thankfully, the accident was more minor than it could’ve been. No one was seriously injured (Katherine is feeling pretty sore from the crash today, but she assures us that it’s fine. I dearly hope the soreness is improved tomorrow and in the coming days!). The rear bike rack took the brunt of the collision, folded over, made a (relatively small) dent in the car, and shattered the back windshield. While this may sound like a lot of damage, rear-ending can total cars, and this is definitely fixable.
Assessing the state of Ody
So, after we cleaned the car of broken glass last night, I called my dad on FaceTime to assess the damage, and try to figure out what needed to be done (thanks Dad for being our on-call car help!).
This morning, we set to work. Some called body shops, others called insurance, still others called car window replacement shops. Truly, the work this morning was all-hands-on-deck, and it was amazing to feel us navigating the challenge together. The glass shop here couldn’t fit us in until a week from now, which doesn’t work well with our constantly-changing schedule. As a consolation, they helped us put some plastic on the back, so bugs and rain will stay out. Thankfully, the shop in Colorado Springs had space on Monday, which is near where we are staying Monday night. We’re planning on getting the dent fixed in another city down the road.
Apparently my dad and little brother have a joke about Ody having nine lives, and this puts Ody down to six lives. At this rate though, we should just have enough lives left on Ody by the end of this trip.
I feel like I sing the praises of our hosts every blog post I write, but truly: the Warm Showers hosts are phenomenal. Our host this weekend let us park Ody in his garage, let us borrow his car while we were figuring out fixing Ody, and then made us a delicious dinner last night after it all. I am repeatedly blown away by the kindness, hospitality and generosity of these people. On our trip, we put ourselves at the mercy of the chaos and entropy of life. This is offset in part by great help we receive from people like our hosts.
Over dinner, Parth, Katherine, Vincent and I joked around about how something goes wrong almost every day on this trip. Yet, somehow it never feels that dire. This trip never pretended to be easy, and our first week(s) taught us to navigate challenging situations together as a team. Bike problems feel routine (and they are, due to a bike that shall not be named…), logistical problems are tackled with ease, and larger things like car accidents are chipped away at together, as a team. I recently remarked that we’re falling into a rhythm as a team, and I think a good part of that is our familiarity with navigating the challenging reality of this trip.
As always, my musings aside, here’s a summary of what we got up to today:
After navigating the car stuff this morning, we all set out to spend our rest day in our own respective ways. Vincent set out to do his regular adventuring (which today included getting a Denver library card). Parth made pizza dough, in preparation for making pizzas tomorrow night. Aja explored Denver around on her bike, alongside a stop at REI. Katherine went to a long-awaited doctor appointment for her knee. I grabbed lunch with a friend who happened to be passing through town. This, of course, is in between the general resting, napping, and bike repairs characteristic of our days off.
Yam and hotdog curry, as prepared by Parth for the team for lunch. It was quite tasty!
Attentive readers may notice that that is a short list of Spokes. We are down to just five Spokes for most of this weekend. Sophia flew out to North Carolina to see family, and Timothy is seeing his partner, Julia, who flew in for the weekend.
Some of us reconvened in the evening at Denver’s RiNO district, which is characterized by trendy bars and restaurants nestled among large murals. We grabbed dinner at Denver Central Market, where we got to hang out with Julia, and generally bask in the freedom and oddity of being in the largest city we’ve been in in a month.
Hanging out at dinner!
And so we go, towards another day, uncertain of what the days will bring. We do know for certain that challenges will come around eventually, but so will the great days of amazing biking, big laughs together as a team, and just the general delight that traversing the country at 15 mph brings.
Onward,
Joel