Saturday 7th July

Today's report is more of a Daily Deformation from Utah, seeing as the Caravan of Wolf is not due out until Monday. So far, little to report, although Mike DID almost fall victim to a fringe wing of Mormonism that encourages women to collect multiple HUSBANDS... but I digress.

On the more mundane front, Kiyone has suffered her first road hazard. Actually, it's more an old wound came back to haunt Nikki's wallet. 4 years ago, we were driving along the freeway from New Orleans to Baton Rouge when a massive truck roared past in its inimitable 'I own the road, get the HELL out of the way!' way. Kiyone was in the adjacent lane and indeed well out of the way, but the truck's tyres kicked up a pea-sizes pellet of gravel which hit Kiyone's windscreen with a loud little 'TAK!', leaving the beginnings of a crack in the glass. Nikki's reaction was most impressive, considering how much she loves her car. The annoyance and prospect of a trip to the dealership YET again (Kiyone's rear little side window had ONLY just been replaced following a broad daylight breakin in front of Scott's sister's house in New Orleans, resulting in the theft of Nikki's discman and a swathe of her favourite CDs. Assholes >:/), caused no more of a reaction in Nikki than several minutes of slow deliberate breathing and her knuckles turning white around the steering wheel. I thought it best not to touch her for a while ;)

Anyway, after I had left, Kiyone went back and the new ping was fixed. Half-assedly, it seems. The Curse of Louisiana. In the ensuing 4 years, the unrepaired crack had slowly grown to about 3 inches in length, but not big enough to warrant urgent repairs.

En route, Texas had decided to get in on the curse thing and unleashed a bug inside Kiyone. Nikki, in a surprising move for an animal-loving, yet virilent anti-bug person, tried to catch it or brush it out the car window. She realised she had a ways to go to develop Xena-like reflexes and decided to just kill the little insect *bastard* by trapping it against a surface and crushing it. This worked out a little better, and the critter was despatched to Bug Heaven with a squish under her thumb. Right over the crack in Kiyone's windscreen. Uh-oh.

They headed into the Rockies with a noticeably-larger 3-forked crack and growing fast with the 75-80mph wind resistence. The hailstorm didn't help either.

So when Mr Chenoweth noticed the mother of cracks enveloping the driver's side of the windscreen, he insisted on a trip to the workshop. Unfortunately, the injection-filler system for crack repair was too late, and Kiyone now sports a whole new windscreen. Luckily, insurance covered about 80% of the bill, but the last-minute-unanticipated costs over the last three days are starting to irk. In addition to the windscreen, Jet Wolf, through a late-discovered technicality, was forced to leave behind in Baton Rouge a hefty chunk of her possessions, like all her books, magazines, entertainment centre, stereo and second TV. This will cost over $500 to transport separately.....so if you haven't considered this yet and consider yourself a true Jet Wolf fan, you might want to send a few bucks her way. G'won, be a sport. She'll love you forever, I promise ;)