Oh Deer!

I don't know if this is a rite of passage when you live in rural New England, but I recently hit a deer while driving. From what I can gather, this is a pretty common experience, except that most of my friends were driving big manly trucks and I was in our little tiny Honda Fit. For all it's worth, despite the fact that the deer was pretty big, our tiny fit sent it flying. We had body damage to the car, but the frame and lights are fine, and the impact didn't seem to have much of an effect on the forward momentum of the car.

It was a crazy weekend, to boot. N had a game down in Concord and was visiting with friends down there, so we went down early. We met up at the arena and his friend stayed to watch him play, which I thought was cool. We grabbed a bite to eat then headed home. The drive is actually not as painful as I thought it would be, and if anything, is a shorter trek than games up in Burlington or St. Albans. Plus, I wasn't as exhausted (thankfully) as I thought I'd be. Either way, we got home around 5:00PM (after being out since 9:00AM) and N immediately informed me that his buddy SMA wanted him to sleep over. A was heading over to her pals house for her own sleepover, so I dragged my sorry and tired butt off the couch and drove N over to his friend's house, which is sort of in the middle of nowhere and a fair distance away. I took the highway over there but chose the roads on the way back, and that was a mistake.

While heading home, I was doing about 45 mph when a deer ran across about 1/4 mile ahead. I turned on my brights and eased off the accelerator when another deer darted out right in front of me. I had no time to react, and I slammed into it, sending it flying. There was literally nothing I could do. I pulled over to see how bad things were - the deer was clearly gone, and the front of the Fit was a bit dented. Total bummer all around, though on a bright note, the car drives fine, and everything else is working, including the lights. Nothing is leaking, and no mysterious smells, liquids, or gasses are being emitted. Interestingly enough, when I dropped N off, SMA's dad was talking about a buck they shot while hunting, so deer were on my mind.

The front end is a bit thrashed, so that's going to cost some money, but nobody got hurt, with the exception of the deer. I feel bad for the animal, but I get a sense he or she didn't even look before jumping out onto the road, and there were cars that preceded me, which you'd think would have warned the animal that it wasn't a good time cross the road. Then again, what do I know?

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Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to frankrichter1951 for the pic.