We settled uneasily into our new patterns of school and work.  September for me was broken up by a pair of trips to the woods. One was a camping trip for to learn legal stuff and the other was a camping trip to teach outdoor stuff. The culmination was the Wilderness Traverse Adventure race, to be held in the first weekend of October. Between the demands of school and the summer expedition, I haven’t had a chance to race all year. I was looking forward to the Wilderness Traverse, even more so because it was the last local race of the non-frozen season. In anticipation of the race, I even bought a new mountain bike to replace the one stolen from the car in Vancouver.

Friday, October 2nd, I ducked out of school early and loaded up the trailer with gear for the weekend. I kept my clothes, new bike,  and other expensive bits in the car with me. I was travelling on my own but planned to meet my teammates at the race. Having the trailer was a huge help. Normally, we find accommodations at a motel some distance from the race start, then lose valuable sleep time travelling between the race headquarters the night before, motel, and morning race start. We end up paying for a bed and then barely use it.

With the trailer, it was all going to be different. I was going to set up camp in parking lot of race headquarters and attend the race briefing in my bathrobe. My alarm was going to go off 15 minutes before race start and I was going to hit snooze. Post-race, I was going to strip out of my dirty clothes on the finish line and step into my trailer for well-deserved nap.

Naturally, it didn’t work out that way, because that wouldn’t make a good story.

About 4 PM, as I was stopping and going with rush hour traffic on the 401, I was rear-ended by a cargo van. I had just slowed to a stop behind a little polluting VW Passat TDI, when the van plowed into the trailer without even a squeal of brakes. As I was pushed forward, I jumped on the brakes, but that wasn’t quite enough to stop me from tapping the bumper of the Passat. My first thought was, “Damn it, I’m going to be late.”

The trailer was trashed, with the cargo van embedded into the back of it. The entire trailer box was pushed forward, where it sort of wrapped around the propane tank that was bolted to the frame. The walls had been pushed out by the compression and door swung open, showing the splintered woodwork inside. The driver of the van was quite apologetic, as well he should have been. “I only looked down for a second,” he said, holding his cell phone. Dummy.

The Passat was hardly touched, it seemed. My front bumper had caved in, but his bumper only showed two little spots from my license plate. As I began to exchange information with the van driver, the driver of the Passat joined us, then a fourth guy. As it turned out, the van had stopped so fast (because, you know, I was in the way) that the Pontiac behind it had plowed into the van as well.

The Passat got off easy, thanks to my attempts to brake. The trailer was a big shock absorber for me; if the van had hit the car at that speed, it would have been ugly for both of us. As it was, the damage to the van was limited as well. The Pontiac got the worst of it because it drove into a line of 3 vehicles and a trailer. That kind of mass isn’t going to move.

Did I mention that we were in the centre lane of the 401 Express? 5-0 showed up pretty quickly, but not before clouds of tow trucks, buzzing around us like flies. The smell of a 4-car pileup is like carrion to that lot. They were mightily disappointed when only the Pontiac needed a tow.

While we waited for the police to take down all our info, I sat in the car and listened to the radio. The traffic news was reporting delays on the 401, due to a multiple car collision westbound at the Allan offramp. That’s like fame, right? I was going over plans in my head, trying to figure out how I would sort out the traffic mess, ditch the busted-ass trailer and still make it to the race. Sitting there though, I started to notice an odd tingling sensation in my back, just below my shoulder blades. By the time were finally given the go-ahead to proceed to the Traffic Collision Reporting Centre, the tingling had become a tightness that discouraged me from bending too much. By the time we arrived at the TCRC, the tightness had graduated to good old-fashioned hurt. There was no getting around it – racing was out.

Well, I won’t bore you with the rest. I spent the next 5 or 6 hours at the TCRC, making reports, having pictures taken, and talking to the insurance company. The good news is that it wasn’t my fault, so our losses ought to be covered. The bad news is that our trailer, noble and sturdy home of our 2015 summer cross-Canada expedition, was no more. I salvaged my gear from the shattered remains and bid Chez Johnston a sad farewell. Next year, we’ll tent it.

I had to get back to school on August 31, but Those Johnston Kids didn’t. Grade schools didn’t start until after Labour Day and that left us without any sort of child care for the week. The corrupt daycare that they were in last year refused to take them back, despite having room, because we didn’t pay them over the summer when the kids were travelling. I understand the need to keep the daycare full in order to cover expenses, but that’s just extortionate.

So we all went to law school together. They only had to sit through the one class on Mondays. The kids were invited into the class to listen in, but declined, preferring to sit out in the quiet sun room with their books and handhelds. My professor came out to meet them on the break and they were uncharacteristically mute. I felt like the guy in that old Warner Brothers singing frog cartoon.

It wasn’t until Tuesday, September 1 that we discovered that the car had been robbed in the driveway Sunday night, mere hours after we arrived home at 10 PM. Someone had quietly opened the doors grabbed a few things and ran. The crook stole our ashtray and the $3 in change in contained, the power inverter (but not the required power cord), a bin full of books, another bag of children’s books and, as we realized later, our camera. The camera wasn’t worth anything, being just a 10-year-old point and shoot with a broken case, but it contained all of our vacation photos. Sigh. I was saddened at the theft of the camera, but annoyed by the theft of the ashtray. Do you know how hard those things are to replace?

This happens fairly regularly in our neighbourhood. There is some ass who periodically enters vehicles that the owners have forgotten to lock at night and makes off with whatever odds and ends might be negotiable. We’ve never had anything of great value taken, but one of these days I will set up an infrared camera and catch the crook once and for all. Or sew up a costume and devote my life to fighting crime under cover of darkness.

In the meantime, pending vigilantism, we put up some signs in the windows of the house and car, offering a reward for the return of the camera and vacation photos. We got no response from the thief, but over the next few days commiserating neighbours dropped by to ask about the crime and share stories about their own losses. Finally, towards the end of the week, Mama heard a rumour from one that a dog-walker had found a number of discarded items that could be ours. He offered to pass along our address and we crossed our fingers.

Then it just got weird. The kids found the ashtray on their way to school, at the end of the street. The bag of books was found a block away on the lawn of a family whose kids went to the same public school as ours. They had heard through the grapevine about our loss and connected the dots. Then, about 10 days after the theft, the bin itself was dropped off by someone – not a the dog-walker – who found it cast aside as well. In it were all the worthless and/or useless electronics, including our camera!