Mayhem Update: Regaining A Semblance Of Normalcy

We have had a string of phone calls and visits from adjusters, contractors, and concerned neighbors, and we have a list of things to do. Putting good wheels back in the garage was at the top of the list, so some searches were made on the Internet this morning and our Brother-In-Law hauled us up to St. Louis to check out some cars in person. We drove a 2015 Explorer home tonight that had been a rental car in Virginia Beach, and it seems like a good one.  It feels like the old one, but tighter, with a snappier throttle response, and a touch screen dashboard. I don't think the driver is going to be able to use that very well while driving, but maybe we will adapt.  I'm still fond of the chrome knobs and buttons that I had on the dashboard of my '51 Hudson.  Anyhow, here are a couple photos at the end of the driveway where the crime scene invaded our lives.

The perp stole his second car 1.6 miles east of here from a patron at Rube's Liquor Locker. You can tell by the spacing of the tracks that he was sliding sideways after he left the road.  He mowed down our 911 sign so the responders could not see our number. Two is one, and one is none.  We are going to put up a second number on the other side of the driveway.  He hit the driveway,

...went up and over, landing on the top in the ditch on the other side of the driveway. The pile of glass shows where the windshield was.  This wreck would have killed most people.  I am confident that he had not buckled in.  Drug crazed and sh*t-faced drunks seem to survive terrible wrecks, and this guy came out of the wreck like a lion.  I guess that must be better living with street corner pharmaceuticals.

Two of the friends that came the day after this mess were Mike and Valinda Rowe, of Illinois Concealed Carry, the Carmi Rifle Club, and our concealed carry instructors.  They walked through the entire scene with us and discussed the events.  We are still figuring out what we did right and what we did wrong, and we are already making changes to make our home safer. Was it bad that the keys were in the car? The garage was closed, and the car would have been safe from the casual thief.  The perp would have invaded our living space had he not found the keys in the car, and then we would probably be looking at the trauma of a shooting in our home and the legal aftermath of that.  I am taking the keys as an answer to a prayer we did not even know we needed to pray. I am also very glad he took our car into the woods with no escape rather than going on the road where he may have killed an innocent victim.  Stay tuned, there is more to come.  We want to pass on what happened from our perspective in the home while mayhem was happening around us.

I hope our visitors have enjoyed the Valentine Countdown.  I started a list of songs and it kept getting longer and longer every day as songs would pop into my head.  I got up to two songs per day possible when I began posting them, and was able to pre-post the last couple weeks one night in an internet YouTube session.  It was great fun for Susan and me, and I hope you all like the songs we chose.