Moose 1, Volvo 0

Okay, this is what happened.

My friend Jennifer needed a weekend away to refocus her writing. She also loves my family's lake place in northern Idaho [who can blame her?] and asked a while back if we could meet there and write like fiends. I thought this was a wonderful idea. I got the okay from Those Who Have Power, and we planned this lovely weekend.

Thursday, the day I left for the lake weekend, rolled around. My roommate and I ended up spending far too much time at Costco and Safeway and a couple of other places I have no idea why we visited, so I left town at 6:30 PM. This was about 3-5 hours later than I planned. I wasn't thrilled about this, but it happened, so what to do, right? I made it to my parents' house in Spokane [Mom had a bunch of stuff for me to take to the cabin. Of course she did.] at 11:00-ish, and took off about a half hour later for the final leg of my trip.

At this point, my darling imaginary reader, you might be asking yourself why the HELL I didn't stay the night in Spokane. I will tell you. One big reason:

My mother.

No, no. Don't roll your eyes. Mom just likes to delay my departures. I don't think she even realizes it, but God love her, she does it. If I don't mind losing half a day at the lake, I sleep over at my parents then get up and get dragged over half of Spokane with Mom. She swears, every time, this will not happen, and yet...it does. She can't help it. She isn't bad. She's just drawn that way.

And okay, I love waking up that first morning at the lake. It's so quiet and peaceful and I'm so happy that I'm there. [sigh]

What? Oh! Right. Back to the story.

The last leg of the journey extends from the edge of Spokane to the cabin at Priest Lake. It's about 90 minutes of driving [more or less, depending on who you are] and within that distance is the ONE PLACE on the whole drive that has no cell coverage.

Enter The Moose.

I was coming around a bend, or that's how my memory tells it, and there it was. I had time to slow a bit, turn a bit and yell "NO NO NO NO!!!" and then....

CRASH.

Moose met car. Car knocked over moose. Moose destroyed windshield and dented car in retaliation.

When I caught my breath and looked around, I could see the moose starting to stir. I knew I couldn't call anyone. I knew moose can do big damage to human beings. I knew this moose was probably pissed. I knew I had to get out of there.

I drove 12-15 miles with a shattered windshield to the cabin. Remind me NOT to do this again.