High Speed Chase in Bouzigues?

Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true!

Try to picture this scene . . .

You are sound asleep at 2:19 AM on a Thursday morning, when BANG! CRASH!

To me, growing up in California, I thought it must have been an earthquake. But no, there was a car running right outside our house. It certainly wasn't an earthquake.

Mike's first bleary, sleepy idea was that the recycle truck dropped a lot of glass, but we instantly realized that the noise was far too loud and crazy to be explained by the recycle guys - unless they crashed into the house at the same time!

Next we hear voices mixed with the sound of the running car. The noise all sounded so close (like, inside our house!!) that Mike ran downstairs to see what was going on.

There was a car running, with the door open, and it was so close to our house that the opened car door was mere inches from our front door.

Apparently, some man performed a hold up somewhere nearby (I have no idea where since pretty much everything is closed at that time here in Midi!), and he was running from the gendarmarie! He was obviously a rather stupid thief because he headed straight into the super narrow streets of our tiny village.

Reminder: The street in front of our house is so narrow that a Chevy Suburban might not fit - I kid you not.

The man literally ricocheted off of potted plants and cement planters in the street before he finally hit the last house before the street turns - total of about 50 feet, start to finish.

He hit that house so hard that his car bounced backward (leaving shattered glass everywhere) and came to rest inches from our front door - literally. He ran instantly, leaving the car running.

After 20 minutes, the car finally ran out of gas (we guess), but in that 20 minutes it spread oil everywhere - all over the street, splattered against our house & some other houses. Ewww.

In the pictures below, I'm standing on our front step looking toward the point of impact in the first. In the second, I'm standing across the street from our house to get the wide angle shot of the front of our house & the point of impact.

See how close he was?!











When the tow truck finally hauled the car away around 5:30 AM, it left a trail of oil all the way from our house back to the church.

In this picture, I'm standing in front of our house looking back down the street, in the direction of the church.

The gendarmarie also left behind all the broken glass . . . all the garbage that had been spread along the street when the car ricocheted . . . everything. So, when the sun was out Thursday morning, everyone headed outside to clean up in front of their homes.

You know what was amazing? The house the car actually hit is completely unmarked! There isn't even an obvious scratch in the paint of that home! I'm glad because a very, very old woman lives there. Now we know another advantage of having a home built of stone about 200-300 years ago - they were built to last.

Pretty crazy, eh?

Love to all!