"You take this thing off-roading?"
"...not", I reply with unamused ice in my voice, "intentionally."

On Sunday July 15, 2001 Frank from Sunnyvale Towing turned back to the job of hauling my immobile 1999 Audi A4 2.8 onto his flatbed towing truck. At roughly 2:30am the morning of the day before I was run off the road. Although I got my A4 with Audi's Quattro 4 wheel drive option I assure you that my departure from the pavement was not by choice.

It had been a fun visit to my buddy Rick's chateau in the hills of Portola Valley. As I made my way home along the narrow, twisty, mountain-like road of Arastradero I came face to face with a tan colored Honda. It was very dark and, as the cliché goes, it all happened so fast, but I feel fairly certain that I saw the Honda logo on what may have been a tan vehicle. There's nothing particularly odd about this, except that the bastard was in my lane.

I was coming around a blind curve bearing to the right. On my right was a steep embankment dropping down into the trees below. To my left was a fairly steep little hill leading up into some horse pastures. To my left and towards the hill is where I headed in my rapid attempt to avoid the other oncoming automobile.

To shorten my longwinded story I will now give a concise account of events after I swerved and provide photos. In my attempt to swerve into and pass in the left lane I lost control of my car. I hit the fairly steep embankment and shot up onto the hill. I demolished a bush that had been living there. My car (somehow) squeezed between two trees that were as far apart as my car is wide. I launched out from the trees and back down onto the road at which point both airbags deployed. The right side of my car sideswiped a telephone pole, which, in all likelihood, saved my life because it kept my car from going off the other side of the road where a rapid decent into forest below awaited.

My car finally came to a stop. I took some time to collect myself, gathered up my shattered oil pan and some other car parts from the road and hillside, and proceeded to drive the remains of my car to a nearby parking lot.

Miraculously, with the exception of emotional trauma, I escaped the incident without a single scratch. I was, however, very shaken and as anyone whom I called that morning can attest to I was quite a pathetic mess for some time. I would like to extend a very big thanks to my friend Martha for picking me up in the middle of the night and putting up with my unruly state of mind. I would also like to extend a huge thanks to my parents who provided me with support in the wee hours of the morning, especially to my mom who flew all the way from North Carolina to California that very day to help me deal with it all. Thanks for waiting in the DMV for me mom!

Now, on to the photos.