Update

Car is being fixed.  Through some loophole, it is costing me very very little money, about as much as an oil change and a tank of gas.  This also means that in two weeks, I’m going to drive right past where I hit the deer in the first place to trade in the rental car and pick up mine.  I’m tailgating a trailer truck the whole way though, just in case a certain piece of wildlife is itching for a rematch.

Fresh Air and Jello Shots

Every journey has a destination, even the car-destroying, bank account-emptying journey described in my last post.  Said destination was a family reunion camping trip in Vermont.  I hadn’t been to this campground in over a decade, and had not gone camping in almost as long, so it was quite the treat.

Beyond the usual camping type activities – changing wet shoes, playing with fire, avoiding taking showers – the 40+ relatives and assorted guests that were at the campground managed to cram in a bunch of stuff in the regretfully shortened time I was there.  Foremost would probably be climbing the “mountain” that overlooked the campsite (1100 feet isn’t anything to sneeze at, I was sore for two days).  Last time I was there I made two unsuccessful attempts to climb it, failing because a) I was in the fourth grade and b) adults are wimps.  Felt good to finally deal with that unfinished business, and it was awesome to look down over everything I had just climbed up.

Nights at the campground used to be consumed by sitting around the fire, eating lots of sugary things cooked over said fire and falling over roots in the dark.  As an adult, things were pretty much the same, excepting the inclusion of beer and jello shots.  And I seemed to trip over tree roots a bit more often – jello shots can take their toll.

We also went to a Vermont flea market – words can’t really do justice to the wide array of crazy things you can buy there.  Goods being peddled ranged from toilet paper and flyswatters to samurai swords and fake prada purses.  I settled for a hand squeezed lemonade and conning my sister into letting me “taste” half her snowcone.

It was great hanging out with all of the relatives, especially around mealtimes.  Some may call it mooching, I call it spreading the joy of my mealtime company.  Mooching is probably a more appropriate term though – my sole contribution to food preparation and cleanup over the weekend was helping a few people open their beers when we couldn’t find a bottle opener.

The Deer Hunter

I had big Memorial Day Weekend plans.  M and I were going to drive overnight on Friday to Vermont, where we would spend three days camping with my relatives and doing all sorts of camping related things, such as hiking, flea market-ing, cooking things over a fire and drinking various forms of alcohol, all while surrounded by the woods of southeastern Vermont and completely cut off from the outside world.

So its around 11 Friday night, and we’re motoring along through New York at about 70 mph when a deer decides to act out some suicidal tendencies on my car.   I caught a glimpse of the deer jumping into the left lane about a half second before impact, which gave me just enough time realize that I had nowhere to swerve.

When a deer hits your windshield, it makes eye contact.  And a surprising loud bang.  My poor car had its windshield smashed and most of its left side ripped up, all the way back to the bumper and including the roof.  M and I got off lucky, just a little flying glass and a slight expansion in my vocabulary.  A mildly deranged tow truck driver took us to a Best Western, which has surprisingly good waffles for their complimentary continental breakfast.  The next morning Enterprise did indeed pick us up, we cleaned out my car in case it had to be totaled, and we soldiered on to Vermont.  The rest of the drive was a beautiful trek through mountains, and we eventually made it to the campsite, 22 hours after we left Ohio.  My first greeter was an uncle passing me an open beer through the car window.

Footnotes:

It took a week for Nationwide to get someone to take a look at my car.  Despite my having arranged all of this before leaving it with them last Saturday.  Despite me paying half the cost of a rental car.  Despite my car body being crammed with sizeable amounts of now rotting pieces of New York’s finest road hazard.  Life may be coming at me fast, but I’m not sure they’re on my side.

On the plus side, my rental car is a 2007 Jetta.  Nice car, but the visibility in it is terrible, especially if you aren’t 5 foot 6.   I am completely taking advantage of the “unlimited mileage” segment of the Enterprise rental contract.  I’m not sure they expect someone who just wrecked their car to use the rental to drive 500 miles to Vermont and go tooling around on dirt roads.