D'oh, a deer!

I had a bit of excitement last night on the way home. As I was riding down Highway 13 a car passed me. So far, nothing out of the ordinary. Cars pass me on Highway 13 all the time. It's after it passed me where things got interesting. The car was about 100 feet in front of me when suddenly the driver hit the brakes, hard. The car skidded and left long black skid marks on the pavement and created a huge cloud of blue smoke. As my brain registered this it also figured out what was going on. A deer had run out of the ditch in front of the car.

I saw two things happen almost simultaneously. First, the car hit the deerand the deer flipped over onto it's side. At the same time, I saw a second deer in the ditch that had been getting ready to follow the first onto the highway. As soon as the first deer was hit, the second reversed course and headed for the hills.

The car pulled off to the side and the passenger got out and walked back to the deer, where I had stopped my bike. The deer was alive, but it didn't look good. She looked sort of shocked by the whole incident. Her husband was looking at the car, which appeared to be undamaged. Because I was less than a mile from home, I offered to call the Highway Patrol for them. They were dressed up and looked like they had someplace to be. They accepted and I went on my way.

I got home and called the Highway Patrol and told them what happened. They said they would send someone out to "dispatch" the deer. This morning on my way in it was still lying on the shoulder. I wasn't looking forward to riding past that corpse every day, but by the time I came home tonight it was gone.

Date: October 23
Mileage: 20
Ride type/Bike: Commute/Schwinn
October mileage: 251
Year to date mileage: 2851

Date: October 24
Mileage: 20
Ride type/Bike: Commute/Schwinn
October mileage: 271
Year to date mileage: 2871