Alternative Hunting

My mom and I had a nice visit with my grandpa today.  The nursing home he's staying at for now is pretty good but seems a lot like a hospital to me.  There must be some way to make those rooms more homey.  We picked up some finger steaks at our favorite restaurant there, the Airport Inn, and took them to the nursing home.  That was a nice treat for grandpa.

It's a 2 hour drive each way to visit him.  I drove but we had my mom's Yukon.  About 35 miles from Sidney right at dusk, I turned my head to say something to my mom, when a deer ran right in front of us.  I said "oh sh*#!" and stepped on the brakes but we still caught its hindend on the front passenger side.  I pulled off the road right away to inspect the damage.  Mom got out first and said we were just missing a headlight and that she couldn't see the deer.  I decided to inspect for myself and thought I could hear a hissing sound which made me concerned that the radiator had been punctured.  (See, I learned something watching Ray put together cars all those years when we were dating).  I looked under the car and there was a small drip.  It didn't look green like antifreeze but I was still worried.  I also couldn't see the deer but didn't do a lot of searching for it.

I climbed back in and mom said we should just go.  We were in a bad spot for cell service so mom wasn't having any luck reaching the boys.  She said to just keep an eye on the control panel because it would give a warning if anything was wrong.  We were 15 minutes from a small town with one gas station so I was just praying we'd get that far.  About 10 miles down the road, I thought it looked like the temperature gauge was higher than normal.  Soon after, it was definitely climbing.  Then, the following warnings started appearing on the control panel, in order, when the next town was in sight: 

1. Low Coolant Level
2. Engine Overheating
3. Engine Power Being Reduced
4. Something about a system being disabled?

We basically coasted into the gas station as we were losing power.  I couldn't get out of the car fast enough because I didn't know if there was danger of fire in that situation.  Rascal was with us so I grabbed him and got right out.  We went in the gas station and explained to the woman what had happened (figured she'd wonder why I was bringing a dog in even though I was carrying him).  She let us use her phone since we still had no service and mom reached the guys who had just gotten back to town from hunting.  She was so nice and opened up the employee lounge so we'd have chairs and a table to sit out while we waited for our rescuers to make the 20 mile drive to pick us up. 

Ray came and got us while my dad stayed at the house with the kids.  They hadn't had any luck on their hunting trip except to get another porcupine so Jace really wanted to come with and keep the deer.  He was disappointed that there wasn't one to be found. 

The car will be towed on Monday morning.  I filled out a police report and we called their insurance company.  That's the only accident I've ever had aside from having someone back into me in my high school parking lot 2 wks after getting my license.  I have to say I was proud of myself for not swerving to miss the deer.  I always thought that would be my reaction in that situation but it didn't even occur to me to do anything but hit the brakes.  Of course, the guys were giving me a hard time for not swerving because then I could've missed it.  But, we also would've ended up in oncoming traffic as it's a 2-lane road.