As I mentioned in my post about cargo liners, we bought a new(er) van last
week. The previous owners were meticulous and the Voyager van "was" in
pristine shape. Yes, I said "WAS."

Late yesterday afternoon, we finally put on the new plates and went on an
drive. We stopped for ice cream in Aurora, NY and on the way home, at 8:40
on highway 34B, I hit and killed a deer. Fortunately since I was still
getting use to our new van, I was driving extra conservatively and since it
was just after dusk I was thinking that deer could be out. So when the doe
first bounded into my view, I was able to quickly slow the van down and I
think I hit it at about 40 mph. The airbags didn't even employ. Since the
deer hit dead center, the bumper, hood and grill took most the impact.
However our nice pretty van has a crumpled hood and cracked grill, license
plate holder and headlight casing. We could see a little steam coming up
from the hood but no leaking of coolant. We can't get the hood open so we
really can't see for sure if the radiator is cracked or not.

Damn. I'm bummed. Mostly because I feel bad for the deer though death came
quick, partly because of Murphy's law of vehicle accidents - it had to
happen to the new van, didn't it, not the old beat up one.

I'm also a bit disturbed that there is no deer recovering program around
here. In PA, the local sheriff had a list of folks who would come anytime
day or night to pick up, process and butcher recently killed deer and the
resulting meat went to a food bank.

Chris, her smoothies and the trio of kittens,
Zeffie, Pablo, Black, Tortie and Tiger