Deer and Big Blessings

Since my sister has already posted about this on facebook I figured I better get this on the blog. I have the best sister and brother in law on earth. Seriously, I do. Nic lends me his Explorer when it is my turn to carpool to work. My car is rather small and that way Landon still has a vehicle. Nic either carpools with his brother or I drop him off. I know, a saint. Since I am away Friday on a field trip, and Friday is my day to drive the carpool, I offered to drive Wednesday. This morning I picked everyone up at Petsmart, our meeting place, at 6:55 am and off we went. It is still dark and so headlights are on, etc. We got onto the freeway and I quickly sped up to 80 mph. We were chatting about stopping off at American Falls Break for Breakfast and pick up one of the cute pink insulated lunch sacks they were giving away. (Break for Breakfast is for women to raise awareness about Breast Cancer. You drive up, stop, they hand you literature, a pen and a lunch sack with milk, yogurt, muffin and a banana, then you drive off.) We were maybe 2 miles up the freeway when suddenly a deer jumped into the freeway, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE EXPLORER. There was nothing I could do. I hit the deers butt with my front drivers side bumper. I felt a jolt, and a bump bump under my vehicle. I thought the wheels were handling weird as I calmly pulled over to the side of the road. I didn't swerve, slam on my brakes or anything. Just pulled over. I felt at peace. A little wired but not freaking out. I got out of my vehicle and I could smell blood and singed fur. I walked around the vehicle expecting to find a dead deer, nothing. I then got down on my knees to look under the vehicle, nothing. I turned and looked up the road, nothing. My co worker Melisa got out of the vehicle on the cell phone with her husband. I told her I couldn't see anything wrong. She didn't believe me. She walked around the vehicle and admitted that there was no damage and no deer. We got back in the vehicle and found our other coworker Marilana on the phone with her significant other. She couldn't believe there was no damage. We were worried that the explorer might not drive well because they had felt the thump and weird pull of the wheels as well. I tentatively pulled out onto the freeway and slowly excelerated. Nothing wrong. Except my hazards had still not turned on. Melisa called Idaho State Police to let them know about the deer and where the accident had occured. They said they would go look for the deer so they could put it out of its misery. We sat in silence for a minute and then Marilana said, "Well we braked but I didn't get any meat for my breakfast." That was enough to make us all laugh and joke the next 20 minutes on the drive out to American Falls. We braked for breakfast at the park, got our really cute bags and then headed off to work. As I made the last turn to work my hazards came on. It made me laugh. I called Rita as I got out of the vehicle. The first thing I said was, "Did you know that it takes more than 15 minutes for your hazards to come on?" She paused and asked, "Why did you have my hazard lights on?" I laughed and told her the story. She had Nic's dad drive over from Aberdeen to check the vehicle out and he gave the car and clean bill of health. As we drove back to Pocatello at 4:15pm we looked for any sign of the deer. Nothing. I told Melisa that I was glad that they were in the vehicle with me so that I knew I hadn't imagined it. She laughed and said that it would be pretty hard for the three of us to have the same hallucination. I have been thanking the Lord all day for our safe arrival. If I had driven my car it would have been another ending, I am sure of it. The deer was quite large. I could see his head and eye clearly from my elevated position in the Explorer. I am grateful for the loving care of my Heavenly Father today.

**As I side note: The bags were so cute that Marilana and I went back through the line so that we could pick two up for her daughters and one for my sister. They are pink with pink circle trim. On the pocked it says, "Fight like a girl!" They even gave us a tiny stuffed pink boxing glove key chain that says the same thing.**