Thunder Bay ON

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Well... we hit a deer.

Now let me just say that Dale and I are fine and the deer ran off and is therefore still living. However; the bad news is that our brand new 2013 RAV 4 needs a new mirror and fender thanks to the little guys shoulder.

It was actually quite scary as it happened so fast. We were about 15 minutes outside of Thunder Bay, I was watching the Sopranos on the computer, Dale was cruisin’ to some oldies. I felt the car kind move in an odd way so I looked up and saw the deer on the left side of the car. As Dale swerved to avoid hitting him head on, the deer jumped forward and he hit us on the left driver’s side, denting our fender and taking off the mirror.

My first instinctual reaction is of course vegetarian freak out; crying. Omg we hit an animal. It took me months to find a car that had a sunroof without leather seats because I didn’t want to buy leather as I love animals so much, and now we just hit one! I looked in the rear view and saw him running away. Dale confirmed that the deer did keep running off the road, through the ditch and into the bushes so I can still claim to be a good vegetarian.

We looked at the vehicle and Dale picked up the pieces of broken side mirror from the highway. After a brief look at the car it appeared to be only cosmetic damages, nothing mechanical or anything that would make the car unsafe to drive, so we continued on to Thunder Bay.

We pulled into Toyota Thunder Bay but the service area was closed for the night. So we went for dinner at the Foundry, a local pub in town and stayed the night in Thunder Bay.

The next morning we went to Toyota where we were helped by Stuart Miller, the body manager on duty. Stuart went above and beyond taking the time to go over the vehicle and patch up the broken mirror. Stuart got us a custom piece of glass and he taped in onto the broken mirror. He secured the mirror onto the vehicle by screwing it in so we could get back on the road. I have to say, the service he provided was excellent. He really took care of us and helped settle my fears about the cost of repairs. As parts needed to be ordered in we decided to continue on with our patched up side mirror and have the correct repairs done in Vancouver.

We drove about 8 hours to Sault Ste. Marie stopping at another gorgeous waterfall. Ontario is incredibly beautiful and the drive along Lake Superior was really breathtaking. I was actually quite surprised that more people weren’t living around here as it was so pretty. But it was mostly trees, lake and the odd small town.

We arrived in Sault Ste. Marie at 7:00pm and have decided to spend the night here as its about another 8 hours to Toronto, and we are a little concerned about driving at night with the deer and moose out there J. So tomorrow morning we leave early for Toronto and will spend three nights there staying with Alana's family.

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Comments

[Michele W]

ouch
your poor car and the poor deer.....glad all 4 of your survived this encounter.....stay safe and keep the wonderful pictures coming!!!!