Dang Forest Rats

 Sometimes finding enough material to make two posts a week in this blog can be difficult. Other times it just jumps right out at you as was the case yesterday on the way home from work. I was just tooling along minding my own business, listening to Larry The Cable Guy talk about poop or farts or redneck relatives, when BLAMO! A good sized buck appeared from my right and I hit it dead center with the big ass station wagon. That deer didn't just jump out at me. No this guy must have been running full tilt and I had no warning. The Yukon soaked up the impact pretty well and I didn't even spill the three to-go drinks that were in a tray on the center console. The soft shell tacos and potato wedges didn't do as well because they hit the floor just before, and in the same spot, as my cooler.

 When I said dead center I wasn't kidding. Both headlights are intact and work although their mounting tabs are snapped off. One of the landing lights popped out but still works. Now the bad news. The front valance, grill, ac condenser and drivers side fender are toast. That drivers side headlight is pushed up higher than the hood and the fender is almost touching the door on the bottom edge. I wonder if some of the frame that extends into the front valance may be pushed up. I took the cover off the top of the core support and was able to look down at the space between the radiator and condenser. Near the bottom there is no space. In fact the radiator is quite bent and I'm not sure why its not leaking. Oh, and more bad news. I have a thousand dollar deductible.

 So now I get to play the insurance/estimates game and let the pros tell me what kind of damage I have. I can't help but notice that if I had a beefy winch bumper on here that the damage could have been fixed with a can of spray paint. I'm thinking there may be an opportunity here to fix this myself with an aftermarket front bumper but to be honest, I haven't looked close enough at the frame to know how bad this really is.

Later.