No, no, no...not his year. This year was uneventful. John flew to Arizona and will be coming back on Wednesday with Legend and Lennox in tow. (Legend went to Utah to visit family just after school was out and then he and Lennox spent two weeks in Arizona with Uncle Kyle and family.) Shayla worked and I hung out at home. So let's talk about last year cause that story is a lot more interesting...
Shayla and I had driven to Utah to pick up Legend and were on our way home. We'd spent the night at the rag-tag Ramada in Idaho Falls. (Note: Do not stay there. It's cheap, but there's a reason. Stay at the Best Western Cottontree Inn which is our usual stop. It's worth the extra dollars.) We left Idaho Falls on the morning of the 4th of July to make our way home to Eureka. It was getting dark when we entered Lincoln County and we were glad to be almost home. And then it happened! At milepost 165 alongside Murphy Lake there is a grassy slope down to the lake on the east side of the road. As we're buzzing northbound in ROVER (my new red Beetle) a deer was springing up the slope and into the road with the intent of crossing to the other side. I had about one second to hit the brakes hard. I must of done it cause I left tire skids on the pavement that were good enough that one of the law enforcement guys commented that the Beetle must have ABS brakes. The front air bags deployed when we hit the deer and the car immediately began to fill with smoke and the explosive smell from the bags. Shayla started asking if everyone was okay and then asking Legend cause he didn't answer right away. I was stunned for a few seconds and I think maybe had the breath knocked out of me. The air bag hit me hard in the stomach. I had a zipper image burn on my skin from the zipped sweater I was wearing and a deep purple/blue/red bruise the size of Rhode Island between my ribs and naval, also an abrasion and bruised left thumb and a swollen/bruised left knee (which I think must have hit the bottom of the dash board). Shayla and Legend were, thankfully, unhurt...but Legend was very scared because of the smoke and the loud explosion sound. I got out and grabbed him and got him to the side of the road. I went back and grabbed my purse for my phone which turned out to have a dead battery. (Legend had been messing with the GPS feature a lot that day). Shayla went back to get her phone and we realized we'd better get the car out of the road. No one was stopping to help and we were worried that someone would smack it at 70 or 80 mph, it was dark and even with the flashers on people don't pay attention.
Here's where it really goes bad....if I'd been thinking straight I would have simply tried the key to see if I could drive it to the shoulder. But no....we pushed it. Do you know how easily a Beetle will roll? We got it to the shoulder and it was then we realized it was also sloped and the car picked up speed...it was downhill from there, literally. It started down the slope and I tried to get the brake but missed. I yelled at Shayla to let it go, slipped on the grass, and got up to see my red Rover rolling down the slope to Murphy Lake. A quick list of what was in the car...laptop, camera, photos, meds, etc went through my head. It rolled into the edge of the lake and stopped! I expected to see it start to sink, but it had stopped on the only little grassy spot sticking up near the edge of the lake. There it was...high-centered on this small boggy knoll with the bottom half of the tires in the water!
As we were standing there staring at it Legend started up with, "Why did you guys do that? My (Nintendo) DS is in there!" I don't know what he was thinking, but he thought we'd pushed it over the hill on purpose :) We couldn't believe how lucky we were that it didn't have to be dragged from the bottom of the lake. Shayla headed down to see if she could get her phone and I ran back up to the road to flag someone down. A pickup full of people stopped for me and in the meantime Shayla was able to get her phone out of the car and call 911. We had the (1) MHP (2) county sheriff (3) Fish, Game, & Wildlife and (4) US Forest Service all respond. The ranger said he was with the border patrol and they all looked at each other with weird looks when they heard a call that the car wheels were the only thing in the water. They helped us get most of the things out of the car before the tow truck pulled it up to the road just in case something happened in the process. We still didn't know for sure if it was driveable, but it appeared to be. They were able to get the crumpled hood open and the engine looked undamaged. It's built with a "crumple zone" to take the impact and it looked like it worked. The hood, right fender and headlight, the front bumper area and grills, and a mount under the radiator had to be replaced. There was also some damage to the driver door. It was open when the car started to roll and hit the mile post marker. They were able to repair that without replacing it. We learned that in a Volkswagen when the air bags are deployed the seat belts also automatically release after the crash and roll themselves all the way out so no one is trapped. Great idea! But it also means that all the seat belts have to be completely replaced. With all that labor involved the cost was over $9000! Now we know why our insurance went up when we left the city and moved to the country. The deer? It was thrown 50-60 feet and landed on the side of the road. It was a yearling and had not had a fawn, so there was no orphaned Bambi. Safeco must have loved us last year for adding this to the other big pay out they had to make. That's a story for another time...
