Then Disaster Strikes…

It was such a pretty car. And so faithful, too. All 124,000 miles of her. And yes, this post is still about the Griso.

The months passed, and I grew increasingly impatient. Nothing in December, January…. I would call every few weeks for an update, and through the telephone, I could practically hear Josh shrugging his shoulders as he told me he still had no news on the bike. Happily, the weather was nice, and I was still enjoying my Suzuki. I had put over 3000 miles on him since I had resurrected it from the dust and cobwebs of my Grandmother’s garage, and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of kicking it over as often as possible.

With the coming of Spring, I had high hopes that my long awaited Griso would finally arrive.  And one fine day, while standing in line at Disneyland of all places,  I got the call I had been waiting for. “Hi, Tracy? I’ve got good news for you!” I heard Josh exclaim, “Your Griso has arrived.” My joy knew no bounds. I told him I would be down the very next day to pick it up. I spent the rest of the day at Disneyland on cloud nine. No line was too long, no crowd too suffocating…tomorrow I would ride my Griso home from the dealership! Or so I thought.

That evening, we headed back towards our home in Solana Beach, only about an hour away. My (now ex) husband behind the wheel of my car. I had taken my shoes off and had dozed off when I heard his terrified scream beside me. I opened my eyes at the very moment the airbag hit me in the face. Dazed, smoke filling the cockpit of the car, I struggled to understand what had happened. My ex jumped out of the driver’s side and began yelling at me to get out of the car. I groggily tried to put my shoes back on my feet. One went on fine, but I couldn’t get the right one on. In addition, the car door wouldn’t open. It was dark, there was glass everywhere, and my door wouldn’t open. Finally a kind motorist came to pry open the passenger door while my ex took shelter on the shoulder next to the HOV lane. The car was so crumpled that the door was stuck, but with me pushing from the inside and him pulling, we managed, and I stepped out onto the glass-strewn pavement into the light of the cars parked behind us in the middle of the I-5 freeway at 8 O’clock at night. It was then that I saw my mangled right foot, with all the toes going the wrong way. I understood then that I wouldn’t be picking up the Griso the next morning.

The following is a blur. An ambulance ride to the hospital in Irvine, a diagnosis of a broken foot (We had struck a car parked in the fast lane at 80 mph, frankly it should have been worse), followed by the return ride home offered by a very good friend who drove more than an hour to come pick us up from the hospital at 2AM. The driver had a sore sternum, but had escaped injury. I was given a big black boot to wear, and a pair of crutches.

A week later, I was feeling… better. But not good enough to ride. Thank God for good friends like Mark Christensen. Mark has had several bikes, has done tons of track days, and I trusted him implicitly. So I asked him to go down with me to pick up the Griso. He happily obliged. Thus, on April 6th, 2012, My dream bike was in my garage. Finally.