March 31, 2007

Bam! Bam!

Earl and I decided to take a ride this afternoon. He was feeling a little better (he’s been under the weather for the past day or two) and the weather was gorgeous, so we jumped in the Jeep and drove through the countryside. We ended up at a Red Robin for supper. It was delish with a capital “De”.

Afterwards, we continued our trek and ended up driving through some rural country on the way home. There was a car ahead of us on this lonely stretch of road. We had seen deer left and right for the past 10 miles when we spotted a deer approaching the road ahead of us. There it was, plain as day, obviously thinking about crossing the road. We slowed down accordingly.

The car in front of us did not.

The next thing we knew, the deer was airborne, the car was swerving all over the place and then limping to the side of the road and smoke appeared to be coming out the windows.

We pulled up alongside the now disabled car and found one occupant with his little puppy. The “smoke” was from the deployment of the air bags. The front end of his car was totaled. The deer was dead. We asked if he was alright, luckily, he and the dog were both fine but they obviously weren’t going anywhere. Earl pulled out his cell phone and called 911, and then we stayed with the guy and his puppy until the cops came. I cleaned the debris, except the dead deer, off the road so other cars wouldn’t hit it, Earl chatted with the guy while they sat in the Jeep, apparently the dog was recovering from pneumonia and couldn’t be outside. He appreciated the gesture.

After getting the driver acquainted with the police, we continued on our way home. I laid back in the seat for a few moments to close my eyes (Earl was driving), when I hear three loud bangs, Earl dropped a few f-bombs and then we swerved all over the place. We were in downtown Rome and a minivan headed in the direction opposite us decided that he didn’t want to turn left from the left turn only lane, so he headed straight for us, mowed down a few signs, jumped the island in the middle of the boulevard and went up on two wheels before coming down on all fours.

The smoke came out of the windows as their airbags were deployed.

Since it was a busy section of town full of cars and there were plenty of witnesses, we just headed the hell home. We didn’t want to see what would happen on the third time.