Category Archives: Orleans

Finally, I’m going to tell about the car accident in Orleans. But first, World Cup action.

Thursday was, thank the maker, the last day of group play. Germany v. USA.

My gateway into soccer was via the German National Team and they are still my favorites which causes a lot of heartburn when they have to play against the USA. I wanted a good game, leaning Germany with the option of changing my mind if the party called for it.

Fortunately, it all worked out. Germany won and both teams went through to the next round. Whew!

Yesterday was a “rest day” but only from World Cup. I had a Timbers game to go to and it was awful. Terrible to watch and we lost. No need to go into details.

Then this morning 9am I was ready for Brazil and Chile. And there were stretches where I thought I was re-living last night’s game. Choppy and terrible to watch. Chile played their hearts out. Penalty kicks are awful and seemingly designed to make 1 man feel horrible. But Brazil goes through.

Tomorrow Netherlands v Mexico. That should be a great match.

Now, to finally tell the Orleans story. Relevant to the story: Orleans is in a rural area in the Six Rivers National Forest. My folks have a little trailer separate from the house and that’s where I stay when I visit.

I woke up in the middle of the night because of a weird noise — a high pitched humming sort of like a chainsaw. I got up and looked out the windows and didn’t see anything. Then I heard voices and I came to the most obvious conclusion: that there was marauding youth gang out murdering people with chainsaws.

I looked toward the house and the lights were on. I wondered how I should best prepare.

Then I saw my parents’ car go screaming out of the driveway.

It’s hard to tell but there’s a boulder and we think the car lost control and hit the boulder and then flipped. The whole scene didn’t make sense so we’re not clear what happened. Also, Ishi Pishi Road is the last road you would want to drive like a maniac on. I will try to post photos of it tomorrow. It’s very narrow and winding.

I ran to the house and went inside and the dog was there wagging his tail.

I then assumed that someone in my family must have keeled over and they were rushing to town (2 hour drive). My sister was visiting too, but neither of our spouses. I went from room to room looking for clues.

Why did they leave me? The dog wagged his tail. I didn’t think they’d leave the dog to the murderous youth gang.

I couldn’t come up with a scenario where the strange noise and disappearance of my family were connected. I knew I couldn’t sleep so I fretting on the couch and then searched for clues and then asked the dog why they left us there in regular intervals.

I finally went to the trailer to put on my shoes so I could feel like I was doing something productive and the car came back.

Here’s what happened. A car went too fast and flipped and started a fire. Fires in the middle of the forest in June are extremely hazardous. They’d seen the flames from their window and hurried to see what was happening. There were neighbors and other people helping to do fire fighting stuff in the hopes the fire wouldn’t spread.

There were young people in the car. One broke his leg. Allegedly there were illegal substances (plural!) found at the scene.

Mission accomplished, they were able to keep the fire under control until the volunteer fire department got there. And it looked terrible. But no one was hurt. Well, the guy with the broken leg was hurt. But no one died.

And my family promised to wake me up next time there’s an emergency.