Oh Dear, A Deer!

At last, we were on the road: September 8,2007. Hours after I FedEx-ed my Ketchum Dell laptop to Dallas and cut in half my corporate Diners Card, Ed and I pulled out of the Fox Den Campground in New Stanton, PA. We were finally on the road together and this was only the second time I had actually been in the coach when it was moving. The big rig actually moved!

We headed to Erie up I-79, a familiar route traveled hundreds of times before to visit my son Chris. I didn’t need to navigate. Ed knew the route. We just passed Meadville; and, in the moment that it took for me to call my Mom, he passed over a deer struck by the car in front of our coach.

Ed straddled the deer’s body with the coach, unfortunately the tow dolly and our Toyota didn’t fare so well. At the next rest stop, a walk around the vehicles showed no damage to the coach except for the washable blood splatters on the rear end. Blood, crap, and hair splattered the dolly shield and the undercarriage of the car. Both the front and rear bumpers on the car were damaged by the carcase that had bumped, tumbled, and rolled underneath. We’d have to call State Farm about this one and we hadn’t even gone 100 miles!

Ed called Chris. “Can you help wash the coach and car? We just ran over a deer,” Ed explained. Chris had helped wash and detail our old coach and cars when he was a teenager but today he had other obligations until later. He’d meet us at the KOA.

Next Ed called the KOA. Under the circumstances, they give us permission to wash the coach and car. The owner even gave Ed a power washer to blast the vehicles clean. Now that is customer service!