And me without a camera -- jcarolek

Tonight I drove to MD for work. I'll be here the rest of the week, and my schedule will be very full. I intentionally left my camera at home -- didn't need the temptation to go wandering around and taking photos -- must stay on task, blah, blah, blah.

So, mine was about a three hour drive and right at about the 1 1/2 hour mark, I had a thought about deer. My thought was, I really hope I get off this particular road before it turns completely dark and the deer start jumping. I'm always nervous that a deer will jump out of the woods along this nice-paced road that traverses the more remote country area between Gloucester and Port Royal. I swear, not two minutes after I had that thought, and JUST while it was still light enough to see it (but not react to it), the deer jumped across my car. At 62 miles per hour, I felt the hit as our paths collided.

I never saw the deer again, so I have to presume he was able to still run, but that HAD to hurt! The car sustained damage to the right front, taking out the headlight, part of the bumper and making some sort of adjustment to the hood, though, it was really too dark by this time to really fully assess the damage. The highway patrolman who responded to my call determined the damage to be under the $1500 reportable limit, and gave me a card with a number on it to present to law enforcement, should I be stopped for the headlight issue. Since it would have taken just as long to return home as it would to carry on to my destination, I decided to carry on. I drove the rest of the journey in the right lane, taking it very easy and thanking my lucky stars the damage was only to the car and relatively minimal.

Never without a camera these days, I had to laugh when I thought about the irony of my decision to leave my camera at home.... I'll have to wait four days to take pictures of it... unless I decide I cannot stand it, and go out and purchase a cheapy camera..... hmmmmm.