Moral: Don't drive in the dark in the MidWest.

All we wanted was some good authentic Indian food. And last night was our “date night” so we put Liam in the car, called the Indian restaurant in South Bend to place a carry-out order, and drove to pick it up. We enjoyed a really nice drive all the way there—Liam playing and napping happily in the backseat. But once we got there, the trip got a little more interesting.

The food wasn’t ready for us. And Liam was ready for his bedtime snack. So Ryan waited inside for the food and I sat in the backseat of the car and nursed Liam. He wasn’t quite finished when we were ready to go, so we ate our semosas in the car and let him finish up.

On the road again, now it’s dark and rainy. Liam, full from his meal is sleeping peacefully in the backseat. We get to the toll gate for the freeway (they charge tolls in Indiana) and the automatic ticket machine is malfunctioning. Great. So one attendant is running back and forth…well sauntering is probably a more accurate description of her movement, but anyway…between the four open gates to manually calculate each person’s toll and open the gate. Thankfully Liam is asleep in the backseat, and we’re not in a big rush (except that we are very hungry!) and have no choice but to wait, so we do.

On the road again, Liam is sleeping, we are having a great discussion and all is well. And then I see a semi-truck parked on the shoulder with its hazard lights on and another car pulled over as well. Ryan changes lanes to the left lane to give them more room. And then I see blood in a big streak on the pavement. And so does Ryan.  I say out loud, “what the?” and we hit an animal. It was already dead. It was  in the middle of the freeway lane. The truck must have hit it and the police hadn’t cleared it yet. I thought it was a pig, but Ryan says it was a deer.(The truck had pigs in it, we saw it at the toll gate.)

So we pull over. A little shaken that we hit ANOTHER deer in this car. (I mean seriously!) But OK. Ryan gets out and tries to look under the car. It is dark and we don’t have a good flashlight. Turns out his iphone doesn’t work very well in that capacity after all. We need to put a flashlight back in the car!

Then, THUMP another car hits the dead deer. And pulls over behind us. A woman was driving this car alone and is a little freaked out. She has a flashlight. Ryan checks her car (which is fine) and then ours (which is leaking something). Liam wakes up and starts crying because it’s dark and he’s not in his bed and is scared (I assume). I calm him down.

We drive home very carefully. The car is making a weird noise.

This morning, Ryan called the insurance agency and explained the situation. They sent a tow truck.  Ryan is going to get the rental car at 1pm today. After the last bout with the deer, we decided to opt for the rental car insurance. (Enterprise will pick him up.) Our deductible is $500 for the repair, hopefully it will cost less than this and we can just pay it out of pocket.

Fun No Matter What!