$hit Happens

On Sunday I left Idaho for Denver. I got back to the track at about 10:30 in the morning Monday. After unloading the horses and getting them taken care of, I called The Fiancé, who was in Farmington, NM with another horse we had running.

He asked me if I wanted to ride down with our jockey, Dennis, to watch the race.

Sure. Why not? I had only driven all night, what's seven more hours in a car? I said I would and informed Dennis that he would have to do the majority of the driving. We were going to take his Mustang and then decided to take our truck instead just in case the Fiance decided to ride back with us (more room, more comfort, etc.). Thank God we did. A couple of hours later, I was back on the road.

It was an absolutely beautiful drive through the mountains. The Fiancé had told me about a place on the way that he thought would be a good spot for us to get away for a couple of weeks. The place looked amazing and both Dennis and I were mesmerized by the scenery.

It began to get dark and we ended up missing a turn. After we realized our mistake and were headed back in the right direction, a car came flying around a turn with their brights on, nearly running us into the guard rail. I'm honestly not sure how we missed it.

I was shook up over that, but we were back on our merry way and just over an hour away from Farmington. All of the sudden I see a brown blur off to the right.

There was no time to react. Not even time for me to get a single cuss word out and those come pretty quickly to me. Just the beginning of a a gasp and WHAP!!! Dennis had stomped on the brakes a half a second (if that) before it hit. The hood flew up. I saw a blur of brown fur flying off to the left. That was about it. I remember thinking that seemed WAY too big to be a deer. My first thought when I saw it was "moose", which is obviously an absurd notion in New Mexico, but panicked minds can be very imaginative. We finally managed to get stopped without going off the road.

After sitting in silence for a second or two, listening to the truck hiss, we confirmed that we were both basically okay. I checked my phone which seemed to proudly announce that it had no service. Neither did Dennis's. At this point we both began to cuss. A lot.

We jumped out to check the damage to the truck. It was bad, but not as bad as I expected for how hard of an impact it was. A car came and just kept on rolling by. I wanted to cry, but figured Dennis wouldn't want to have to deal with a weeping Jodi on top of everything else. He went to check on the deer, which was really about a 400 lb cow elk (at least that's better than a 700-800lb bull elk). Yeah, it wasn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon. I was afraid that we wouldn't be either. Being stuck on a dark, mountain highway with people driving like crazies and my truck sitting out in the middle of the road was NOT a good feeling.

A nice, older couple from the nearby reservation picked me up to take me where I could get phone service while Dennis stayed with the truck. I called The Fiancé. They called the cops. The cops called the tow truck. The cop picked me up and took me back to the truck. He did his report, asked questions, gave Dennis a breathilizer (for insurance purposes) and we waited on the tow truck.

How small town, Idaho girls cheer their friends up.

I finally got the nerve to go look at the elk. It wasn't our fault, but I still felt horrible. I'm a rancher's daughter, I was raised that hunting was just a part of life. I have never felt the need or desire to go hunting myself, I wouldn't have the heart to kill an animal unless I absolutely had to, but I'm not against other people doing it. I've eaten a lot of deer, elk, and other game in my life. However, I was also taught that hunting was for the food, you don't kill just to kill, and you certainly don't waste the life you took. This dead elk just seemed to be such a waste. Knowing that she would just sit there rotting really bothered me. I was hoping that the coyotes would at least eat it, but she didn't look like anything had touched her when we drove by today. I know how stupid it sounds to be bothered by unintentionally killing an elk (I wasn't even driving), but I was all the same.

*deleted picture of dead cow elk here* 

I figured no one would want to see it.

Maybe it was just the shock of everything, I didn't stop shaking until I got the hotel, four hours after we hit her, and got into a hot bath.

The ride in the tow truck didn't help. I was sitting in the middle which, of course, ended up not having a seatbelt. The driver informed us how top heavy the tow truck was with that big of a pickup on it and then proceeded to speed through the dark and winding mountain road that is in a forrest filled with deer and elk while proceeding to light his cigarettes and play with his phone. Thanks for that dude! I really needed a whole hour of being convinced I was going to die after everything else that happened. Asshole.

To lighten the mood of this post, here is a pic of Dennis and The Fiancé sleeping on the way back today. They're both going to kill me if they ever see this.

I've honestly never seen a person sleep in this position before...

Anyway, I'm rambling. The good news is that neither of us are hurt. Dennis is just a tiny bit sore and my chest, the left side of my ribs, and neck are sore. We both had our seatbelts on. The elk didn't go through the windshield. We probably would be dead right now if we had been driving Dennis's mustang and hit her, but we didn't. The truck might be totaled, but it might not be (we should know by tomorrow). All in all, we're pretty lucky.

Who would have thought that Hell could be this pretty?

This does prove my point that New Mexico is just a very bad place for me to be. Though, I thought it'd be safe asking as I stayed away from Hellbuquerque.

*Fingers crossed that the truck isn't totaled because I really need that vacation, no matter where we take it, even more now. That won't happen if we have to get a new one.