Stupid Deer

This really is getting ridiculous.

Yesterday was a lazy day. Because we had gotten in so late on Friday night, we all slept in on Saturday morning. It was raining, so there wasn’t a lot we could do outside. That was too bad because there was a World War II re-enactment at the park. However, the weather was so bad that the re-enactors shut down the re-enactment early and went home.

Because it was so rainy, we decided to just hang out at the RV. Kim ended up doing more laundry, Louis watched Star Wars (again), and Shelby and I each ended up taking a nap. When I woke up around 4:30, I thought to myself, “Maybe we’re going to get through today without anything bad happening.” I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Holthouses invited us over to watch a movie with them. The plan was to stop and get something to eat, and then go to the Holthouses. We were on our way into Murfreesboro when suddenly a deer ran out in front of us. Right before we hit it, I could see that it was a young buck. What I didn’t see was that there was a doe right behind the buck.

I swerved as much as I could without going into oncoming traffic, but it wasn’t enough. We hit the buck with the right front of the van. The deer flipped up into the air, did a somersault, and landed in the ditch. I was sure we had killed it, but the buck jumped up and ran off into the woods.

Meanwhile, while we were hitting the buck, the doe ran headfirst into the front passenger side door of the van. She seemed to be fine and we saw her standing up on a hill a few minutes after the accident.

The kids both got really upset and started crying. I thought they may have gotten hurt, but they were just upset that we had hit a deer. Within a few minutes they had stopped crying and wanted to go look for the deer.

The Rutherford County Sherriff’s Department came out to take a report, but naturally we had just crossed into the Murfreesboro city limits, so we had to wait for a Murfreesboro police officer. The County Deputy and the Murfreesboro police officer were both very nice and very helpful.

Thankfully, the van is still driveable, although the right front light is broken, the right fender is damaged, as is the hood and passenger side doors. I think we are probably going to have to skip staying in Alabama and Atlanta so we can get down to Florida to have the van repaired. Of course, we can’t leave until we get the parts we need to repair the tow dolly first.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Uff da…