Usually I'm a pretty relaxed driver on country roads. As a longtime North Dakotan, I'm used to plowing through snow drifts during the winter and slip-sliding in mud up to my vehicle's axles in the spring.
Lately, though, I've been feeling pretty frazzled by the time I pull into the garage at the end of the day. Wildlife on the move, snowing, high winds and darkness falling early have combined to make my commute more of an adventure than I want.
It doesn't seem to matter which route I take home, either. The other day, for instance, I took the "back roads" because going on them is a shorter distance from the store where I was shopping to our house than going back to the main highway I usually drive.
It wasn't a good idea.
Wildlife
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I didn't save any time that night because I nearly ran into two animals along the way. The first was a dead skunk in the middle of the road. By the time I saw it, it was too late to swerve out of the way, so I centered it.
I was feeling pretty smug because I came out of that episode smelling like a daisy. My good feeling didn't last very long, though, because a few miles up the road a deer bounded in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and swerved, so I didn't hit it.
Fortunately, the buck didn't have any relatives traveling with it because I probably wouldn't have been able to avoid them, too. After a run-in with a deer a few years ago that totaled my car, not hitting another is a priority. I still can hear the sickening thud and the glass shattering when the deer hit the windshield, followed by the acrid smell of my airbag going off.
The highway patrol officer who wrote up the accident report told me that, though I may have felt bad about hitting the deer, it was the right thing to do. He explained that when people try to swerve (as I did the other night) that they often lose control of the car and are seriously injured.
I consider myself lucky that on that recent night I not only missed the deer and the skunk, but didn't end up in the ditch from dodging flying debris. I was so shaken after the deer and skunk episode that every time I saw, out of the corner of my eye, corn husks and branches flying across the road, I veered to the side of the road.
I must have been really unstrung by the time I got home and parked in the garage because when my son Brendan got in the next day he commented that there was barely enough room on the passenger side to squeeze between the van and the garage wall. I guess my arms were so stiff from the death grip I had on the steering wheel that I couldn't turn it properly.
A road more traveledAfter that trip I vowed that I wouldn't drive home the back roads route until the deer have stopped migrating. I decided that no matter how many miles may be saved, the stress wasn't worth it.
My theory was that if I stuck to the main roads, I wouldn't have to worry about deer as much. Usually, they seem to stay away from high-traffic areas.
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But not always, I discovered.
I was on the second to the last leg of my journey home, traveling on the paved county road that our gravel road connects with, when I saw a deer standing in the ditch. I didn't have time to react, and luckily, the deer didn't, either.
When I got home I told Brian that I didn't want to drive again until next spring when I could travel in the daylight. Unfortunately, my wishes don't jibe with the reality of getting to work, so instead of spending my winter hibernating, I had to give myself a pep talk and get back behind the wheel the next day.
On the bright side, I don't have to worry about getting sleepy during the dark trip home. My eyes are much too busy darting from one side of the road to the other to close.
