oh deer.

let's start with today and work our way backwards.

a. and i have two cars.  both of which, are currently in the shop & completely un-drivable.  sheesh.

for columbus day weekend, we hopped in our trusty corolla and made the six hour drive to washington dc for a friend's wedding.  before we left, we dropped off our truck for a brake inspection and planned to pick it up on the way home.  on the road, we drove through a ton of beautiful quaint countrysides and hit a bit of holiday traffic as we headed south.  we weren't in a rush, but the traffic definitely slowed us down more than we had hoped.

by the time we reached maryland, it was dark.  about 45 minutes from the hotel, on the i-83, a. started telling me of some of this experiences overseas.  he was getting animated as he drove and i was completely engaged in his stories.  suddenly, from the right side of the road, a deer ran out of the trees and beelined straight for our car.  a. swerved to miss the buck, but the deer kept running across the road & we hit the poor thing on the passenger side, at about 70 mph.

i won't go into the details, but it was bad.  and i was scared and a. was obviously shaken up as well.  we pulled over and luckily one of the cars behind us stopped to make sure we were okay.  which we were.  i wish i could say the same for mr. bambi.  the man that pulled over was a huge relief because i was on the verge of tears- heartbroken for the deer.  after verifying we were okay and our car had suffered mostly cosmetic damage, he said, "i wish i could go back an' grab the deer, but it ain't huntin' season so it's illegal to pick 'em up this time of year."  i totally had to laugh and the tears never did come.

we rummaged through our car and luckily had a ratchet strap that we used to keep the wheel well from dragging against the tire.  once we macgyvered the car, we hit the road and thankfully had no more surprises for the rest of the drive.  

once we reached the hotel roundabout, we threw the valet the keys to our newly remodeled car and told him not to scratch our baby*.

after two days in dc we hit the road heading north.  the drive home was dull in comparison (thank goodness) and on our way to our house, we picked up the truck from the shop and set about the rest of our night as normally planned.  seeing that we only had one car, a. dropped me off at work the next morning.  as he was heading to pick me up, the truck made a loud noise (like an engine being dragged from the belly of the beast) and as it turns out, the calipers were loose and fell off.  so...long story long...we had to call the tow truck to pick us up and drop us back off at the car shop.  whew.                        

as of today, the truck is now being fixed and we'll be picking up our rental car this afternoon.  needless to say, it's been quite a hectic couple days car-wise and we are both completely ready to be done with any and all things related to the automobile.

*totally kidding.  we just handed him the keys.