RAPID CITY, SD – Last night after our Minneapolis meetup Adam drove south on I-35 to Albert Lea, MN then west on I-90, stopping only when our fuel gauge was nearing the “E” hash mark. When he turned the ignition to its “Off” position there were already a couple of semis parked in the gravel parking lot next to a BP station where we planned to fuel up in the morning.

Sometime in the night I awoke to Jason, who had been sleeping in the back, asking “Did you guys hear/feel that?” Both Adam and I groggily replied “What?” and let the issue pass – perhaps lulled into complacency by the steady rain and strong wind that muffled outside noise and our non-stop travel the past few days from Ames to Mankato to St. Cloud to Minneapolis.

This morning I woke up, eager to document the diverse areas we’ve been fortunate to travel to by snapping a few pics of MARV. It was only when rounding the back passenger side of MARV that I noticed the damage.It seems that the semi, which had been parked 5-10′ away, clipped the back of MARV when pulling out. I’m sure this contact wasn’t purposeful – people do make mistakes – but this incident underscores the importance of responsibility – the ying to the yang of freedom. This is something we’ve been stressing since Day 1 – that with freedom comes responsibility.

I generally think truckers are superb drivers; they have to be as their livelihood depends on it and they log hundreds of thousands of miles on the road each year. If they get into an accident their employer may deem them too much of a risk and they could loose their job. Or, if they’re owner/operators they may find their increased insurance rates eat up too much of their take-home pay and decide to find other work. That’s why I’m fairly certain that the driver whose rig damaged our property knew of the accident – anything as unroutine as hearing metal connect with fiberglass and plastic should cause him/her to pause.

What this incident underscores is the importance of responsibility. It is the driver’s responsibility to admit fault. To knock on our door, inform us of what happened and seek to reach a mutually agreeable solution. But they didn’t. So now we’re on the lookout for a blue semi cab pulling a white trailer that has black paint on its corner….

And, knowing that the accident took out of commission one of our marker lights (which can be reason for someone with a badge to ticket us) we stopped at a rest stop and while the guys were making lunch I pulled out a spare can of spray paint we bought back in May from a Birmingham Wal-Mart during MARV’s Transformation, went to work and MARV was soon back on the road.

At the conclusion of this project in about a month we’ll likely make a more-permanent fix using the a staple of the auto repair world – Bondo – but for now, we’ll just keep doing our best with what we have.