Friday

Today started off with cool weather, as we headed for the Oregon coast it became sweatshirt and windbreaker time. It was quite foggy, but still a nice drive. We headed north on 101 and then turned east towards our destination, Mc Minville, the home of Howard Hughs "Spruce Goose'.
About 1 PM we were cruising down the 2 lane state 18 highway, when we met a truck with a trailer of firewood, it hit a bump on a bridge and broke the axle off, here came a flying wheel with a stub axle on it bouncing and flying across the road. Barry dived to the right and hit the brakes, I saw a hole to the left across the yellow line and between everything. As I buzzed passed Barry I could hear a thud and glass breaking, a sick scary sound! I drove across the little bridge to a safe spot on the side and parked the roadster. I walked back to check on Barry. He was OK, but the car is hurt. The wheel hit the left side of the grille shell, missing somehow the actual grille bars, took off the headlight, then scrubbed down the hood side at the beltline hitting the windshield post and ripping out the bolt. Somehow it did not break the glass.
The state patrol was called and responded quite quickly. Once there they told us that it was not considered an accident, just exchange insurance and go on. We said WHAT?? They finally went over to see Barry's car and decided that it was over $1500.00 in damage so they would make out a report. They did not even want to go see his car, it was unbelievable!
The cowl has a big dent, the passenger door was pushed into the rear quarter, no headlight, smashed hood, broken latch, crunched shell and now when the electric fan comes on it hits the shroud and sounds like a thrashing machine. Yes it is over $1500.!!
We were lucky, it could have bounced a little and took out the front suspension or hit the windshield and took out Barry. In the morning we will fix the fan and then go see the Goose.
The Topless Tour will go on as planned.............................A scary day in a roadster is better than any day at work!!