The Diary of Barista Tourista Barbie

Here we are on the Abert Rim (probably spelled it wrong) lots of big empty alkali lakes and no humans in a hundred miles. Lots of little antelope and birds but almost no cars for three hours. Beautiful and empty, well so we thought.... Heading into Lakeview about sunset we decided to drop the speed a bit. We had been doing 90 because it was so empty and open. Suddenly, at 60 miles an hour a gigantic deer was in the road in front of us. We were smart enough to just stomp the brakes and not yank the wheel. When we got our eyes open the deer was disappearing over the car leaving fur and deer splat on the windshield and in the roof rack. We got the car stopped and staggered out to check and see if we were were all in one piece. The car was still running although the front end was pretty squished up.

We were shaking like leaves. A young couple in a pick up backed up and asked if we were okay. When we said yes, they told us to head into Lakeview to the gas station to get the car checked out because we still had over 200 miles to do that evening. They backed up and snagged the deer, I'm sure it's resting comfortably in their freezer somewhere in southern oregon, and we staggered off down the road to the gas station. We got the windshield washed and the car looked over. We all stood around and babbled in shock for a while but the car seemed to be fine so ten minutes later we were headed out of town.

Tman said, "Mom, we aren't going to hit any more deer are we?" And as mom reassured him there was one deer to a customer-- a damned suicidal deer jumped off the bank next to the highway and right in front of us. Who hits two deer in twenty minutes? I mean really, where are the Guiness book people when you need them?

Deer terrorists, I'm sure that's what they were. I was in my usual seat right next to the windshield and I was just shocked at the screams and bad language I could hear behind me from the driver and passenger. We clobbered the deer and Tman was howling so we didn't even stop, we couldn't have stood up anyway we were shaking so hard by then, but we went about 40 miles an hour for the next 200 miles. We made Ashland after midnight and the car ran fine but boy was it squished. Here is a shot of me and the Mashed Mazda. $5000 worth of damage. God bless insurance.

posted by Rocket Davis @ 11:14 AM