Deer! Oh Dear!

Last weekend we took our annual winter trip to Winthrop to visit Chuck and Robin. Everyone was excited for a weekend away in the snow. Addy had a early release day on Thursday so we got on the road by about 1:00. We drove through every possible scenario- pouring rain, stop and go traffic, snow in the pass and then we finally hit some sunshine about 3 hours in. It seemed the drive was really going to improve for us when all of the sudden I heard Cameron throw up. I turn around to check on him just as he threw up again. All over his carseat. It was disgusting (but still less disgusting than the Delta Airlines experience). We pulled over to try and assess the situation. Things were not looking good, but at least we had extra clothes for Cameron and some towels. It quickly became clear that getting Cameron back into the puke-covered car seat was not really a viable option. We had about 60 miles to go so we decided we would put Cameron in Addy's car seat and let Addy go without one and put the barf seat in the back of the car. It definitely seemed like the best and only real option at the time.
Luckily Cameron wasn't truly sick, he just must have been sick of being in the car all afternoon. So we stopped for dinner and took a little break and then got back on the road for the final stretch. By now it was dark which apparently meant it was time for every deer in the valley to dart into the road in front of us. Our first serious encounter resulted in us going from 60 mph to a full stop on the highway to miss hitting a deer in the middle of the road by a couple of feet. Because of the abrupt stop, our very full trunk spilled over the backseat and our suitcase landed on Addy's lap, just missing her head. Luckily she was ok, and we all were ok and we missed hitting the deer. But now we were scared and it felt like the deer were winning. We still had about 40 miles to go and I think we must have seen at least another dozen deer and stopped 3 more times on the road. Brian's knuckles were white and I have never been more convinced in my life that we would be in a totaled car on the side of the road and of course the lack of a carseat for Addy just increased my fears. The kids thought everything they saw was a deer, I thought everything we saw was a deer and about 50% of the time everyone was right. It was the longest 40 miles of my life and I've never seen so many deer in one stretch.
Luckily we all made it in one piece and were ready to start our winter wonderland weekend, but it wasn't the end of the deer sightings!