Many of all y'all will remember this, but it's a hoot to recollect it in yet another (hopefully safer) year. I looked up an old post and found this happened on 12/22/2008 so I'm 2 days early.
Kathy and I were "SnowBirds" for a few years, with homes in Massachusetts, where I grew up, and South Carolina, where I shoulda stayed. We would drive up to Massachusetts in my F250 with the two of us and our two Jack Russell Terrorists, staying overnight at the Holiday Inn at the Baltimore airport (it was dog friendly and had good room service and the Jacks were well trained in how to use the elevators). That year, I was planning on bringing a car back down with me so I also had my car hauler trailer behind the pickup. From my post on Christmas of 2008:
"Last Monday, Kathy, the Jacks and I were headed to Massachusetts for Christmas with the extended family, but we aborted the trip that night when we got to Baltimore. I called my 90-year-old Mom who said:"
"DON'T COME UP! GO BACK HOME! WE'RE ALL SICK!"
"So we talked with our kids (also in Mass.) and found that, yes... Everyone up there has a cold or flu or the "Dread Mahokis" or something and we wanted to stay healthy (I have some surgery planned in two weeks). So, the next morning we turned around and headed back to Beaufort.
After driving all day Tuesday, and when we were about three hours from home near the turn-off for Myrtle Beach, (Honest to God, I am NOT making this up) a 30 lb. wild turkey flew up over I-95 Southbound and slammed into the windshield of my F250, shattering it so I could barely see out to get off the highway at the next exit. We were in the left lane when it hit and It sounded like a shotgun went off. We had cars all around us and I'm still amazed that I held it all together, didn't swerve or hit anyone else and managed to get out of the left lane and get to the next off ramp, 1/4 mile away.
Some Holidays are just plain boring...."
None of us were hurt (although there were glass shards everywhere), we got home around 6pm by renting a U-Haul to pull the trailer back to Beaufort and the truck got fixed over the Holidays at a local Mom and Pop autobody place that did a terrific job. It sure serves as one of the top Holiday stories of the family. And it wasn't a frozen turkey as the State Trooper thought, but a real, live, wild, flappin', Renegade Turkey.
Photos of the outside of the truck:
And from the inside - Visibility was almost nil:
You know............. You can't plan interesting Holidays like this. They just happen.
Thank God I only have to drive 4 miles this year.
