The Way the Vermonter Crumples

Well, as many of you may have heard, I wrecked our beloved Jeep last week. While driving down a very open stretch of rural road in broad daylight (but still with my lights on), someone decided to back out of a driveway right in front of me. Fortunately, I'm paranoid and had already slowed considerably...just not enough to avoid impact.

Judging from (a) how far I didn't push him, (b) how little of my front-end crumpled, and (c) my airbag didn't go off and I didn't head-butt the steering wheel, I'm guessing I wasn't going very fast. No one was injured and I fortunately didn't have any kids in the car.

Unfortunately, the Jeep took a good beating (which it handled quite gracefully). It seemed drivable, except for the dripping coolant (that was just replaced 6 weeks ago). So, I got as close to home as Sidney before I red-lined the thermostat. There she sits...

Hopefully, I'll find out the prognosis tomorrow. If it wasn't 11 years old with 170k miles, I'd say the prognosis was good. However...

Fancy Cellphone Picture of Crashed Jeep