Oh deer! What a bad way to go!

As my wife and I drove out of town Saturday afternoon to do some shopping, my Ipod played an early Johnny Cash song. It's the one where he sings, "I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way."

By the time we got home, that's just how we felt.

What happened? I hit a deer on the way back. I normally don't feel that bad about hitting a deer. That kind of thing happens up here all the time in the Northwoods. We have plenty of deer, and they are notoriously poor at crossing roads. I have hit deer before, though it has been several years. Sooner or later, I will again. It happens.

(I will not swerve to avoid a deer. It's much too easy to lose control and go off the road. Most of the roads up here are in forested areas, and trees don't bend.)

A car-deer crash is no fun. It messes up your car; you need to take it in to get fixed. Even with the insurance, you probably have to pay a deductible. You're driving a rental for a day or two while the shop has it. And if the deer is lucky, it is dead within minutes.

This one wasn't lucky at all.

We were on good old Wisconsin 70, driving west, heading home and over halfway there. The shopping had gone OK. We didn't plan to get a lot, and we didn't. My wife found a opal necklace she really liked, and she bought it. We had a pizza for supper and then stared the trip home. The weather was seasonably cold (about 20 degrees), and the roads were dry.

Daylight was long gone; the sun sets at about 4:15 p.m. now. As we headed west, we listened to a radio episode of "You Bet Your Life," laughing at Groucho Marx's clever inquiries to a young engaged couple.

We had seen a few deer earlier. Then we saw another one. A doe. It was on the other side of the two-lane road, on the shoulder. Then it started walking across the road. Into our path. Notoriously poor at crossing roads, as I said.

Just as it crossed the center line, the doe seemed to realize what it had gotten itself into. But instead of running, it turned around and tried to go back the way it came. It pivoted right in front of me. I braked. Too late. The left corner of my car's front end (the driver's side) hit it in the hip.

We turned around and looped back around the deer, which was now lying right on the center line. I got out to look at the car. It didn't come out too bad. The headlight was still intact (though its aim was knocked awry), and the fender was a little dented. A little fur was caught at the upper corner of the headlight assembly. A little damage, but not much ...



The deer ... that was a different story. It was lying in the middle of the road, trying to raise itself up with its front legs. But its rear legs weren't moving. Then it paused and lay in the road. Then it tried to run away again.

I called 911 on my phone, and finally talked to the local sheriff's office. (Remember, this is a very rural area; lucky I was able to get through at all.) They apparently couldn't pick up my signal on GPS, so I told them about where I was. I gave them my name and address, and I stressed that they need to have somebody come out to put the deer down. I don't carry anything more lethal in my car than a crowbar. A 30-pound bag of kitty litter and various other purchases were lying on top of that.

I took a picture of the doe lying in the middle of the road. I thought for a long time whether to include this picture or whether to edit it to obscure the details. But no injuries were apparent. There was no blood. It is not a gruesome picture.

The deer is just ... lying there, looking at me ...



We were there 15 or 20 minutes, and in all that time just one vehicle passed by. A couple in a truck; the guy got out to look at the deer. He seemed to be a hunter--he wore red and black woolen pants--but he didn't have a gun or knife, either. He felt as bad about the deer as I did. And just as helpless.

Finally, we drove on home--the 911 dispatcher promised they would send somebody out to take care of the deer, which was still occasionally trying to get up. The Ipod stayed off after that; we drove on in silence, feeling awful about the deer left suffering on the road.

I love animals. You know I do. While I'm not a vegetarian, I don't hunt or fish--simply never learned how or had the interest. But as I drove home, I thought about bullfighting.

I know what happens in a bullfight. I have seen videos, from when the bull charges into the ring to when his body is dragged out by a team of three mules--the whole process. And I know how most of you feel about bullfighting.

When the "moment of truth" comes and the matador goes in with his sword, the blade goes in between the bull's shoulder blades and cuts the major blood vessels leading to and from the heart. Bleeding inside, the bull quickly gets weaker and collapses. Sometimes, he just lies down, like a cow in the pasture on a hot summer day.

As soon as that happens, the end comes very quickly. A member of the matador's cuadrilla comes up behind the bull with a short dagger-like sword called a puntilla and makes a quick jab in his neck, between the base of the skull and the first vertebra, cutting the spinal cord. The bull's suffering ends instantly.

Saturday night, I watched that poor deer thrash around for over 15 minutes and who knows how much longer after we left. Obviously alive and just as obviously doomed. I thought about the puntilla. If I had a sharp-enough knife and the nerve, I would have tried to do it. Anything would have been better than having it die slowly and gradually on a two-lane highway in the woods late at night.

There are many car-deer crashes up here. The sheriff's office told me they get so many that they usually don't send out an officer--they will send me a form for reporting it for my insurance. Many deer die the way this doe did.

I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way.

Long countdowns

The Android phones have all kinds of interesting apps. Today, I am playing around with one called MultiTimer.

This app is a countdown timer--countdowns to a certain time or to a certain date. Today, I started a couple timers counting down for distant dates.

One timer currently stands at 585 days, 11 hours, 15 minutes, 20 seconds. A year and a half, plus a month or so. Counting down to July 1, 2012.

That should be the date (more or less) when Freedom Fest starts in 2012. And that appears to be my next chance to see B. They already announced the dates for the event in 2011: It will be start June 30 and end July 4.

Because B works at a financial office, where it's really, really busy that time of year, she can't get days off or vacations in mid-summer. Her only break is at the Fourth of July, when they get a two-day holiday. This year (when the Fourth was on Sunday), they got Monday and Tuesday off. In 2011, the Fourth will be on Monday, and I'm guessing they will get Monday and Tuesday off again. She plans to retire at the end of 2011, and in the past they have talked about moving back to the Midwest --they are both originally from Ohio. So a visit in 2012 seems more possible.

In 2009, she was able to make the trip. But the days off at the office worked in her favor that year--she got Thursday and Friday off. It was hectic, but we made it work. To date, that's the first and last time we have ever met in person.

The other timer is at 1856 days, 12 hours, 14 minutes, 41 seconds. And counting. That's quite a while. Almost five years from now.

I will save you that math. It hits zero on Dec. 24, 2015. That's the day I turn 66 and will be able to retire with full Social Security benefits (if they don't change that by then, which seems possible).

Wild goose chase

I am not good at guessing. That's one thing I knew I had to do as I prepared for my visit to the Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin earlier this month.



My biggest question was this: When would be the best time to visit the marsh to see the Canada geese that stop there every fall? Is it October? November? Which week? Which day? What time of day?

After lots of thought, the answer became obvious: It would be the month, day, week and hour I could be there! Because of my job, it's hard to get away for two days, especially in October/early November. I can only travel when there's a break in the action. And there was a break in the action in early November. I grabbed it with both hands.

I covered the volleyball regional semifinals on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning I was winging south. South as the goose flies. But since I had to follow a road, I went south, then east, then south for a long time, then southwest, then south. It sounds random, but it really wasn't. I knew where I wanted to go--to the marsh, near the geese ...

"Knock me your lobes!"

When I started writing this on Tuesday, it was only going to be a brief update, either before or after the story and photos of last week's visit to the Horicon Marsh. But the update kept getting longer and longer. They tend to do that. I finally decided to do the marsh story/photos later. This time, just an update.

My wife is back home from her trip, and life is getting back to normal. Some of her friends on the trip drove her home--I didn't have to drive to Ironwood to pick her up last Saturday.

They arrived just in time for the first snow of the season. Over here, we got two inches of very wet snow Saturday morning--much of it had melted by that night, and the main roads and highways were just wet. But my wife reported the parking lot in Ironwood was very sloppy with several inches of slush--she had wet feet and pants from wading through it to their car. You just don't think about packing along your snow boots for a trip like that.

She had a good time on the trip but is happy to be back with me and the kitties. Of course, the kitties and I feel the same way. One apparent casualty of the trip: the charger for her Tracfone, which must gave gotten left behind in her motel room. I just ordered a new one for her.

In fact, she was happy she had the phone. She called me at home (or wherever I was) nearly every night, and we sent texts back and forth. It was the first time she had texted--I showed her how to do it before she left. It was a handy way to send her a fast update. I updated her a lot about the storm that was nearing us. The main part wound up going west of us--Minnesota got the worst of it.

Normal life resumed this week. She was with the quilters on Tuesday.

It also appears that my string of six straight Thanksgivings at the state football finals is in dire jeopardy. Our team won its regional title game last Friday night, but it lost its top player to a knee injury; he was such a major factor in the team's success that the playoff trail could well end this Friday night at the dome in Marquette, at the state semifinals.

So, for the first time in seven years, I may be able to stay home for Thanksgiving. Or not. We _may_ drive down to Detroit for a _relaxed_ visit with my older son and his GF; no final decision can be made until the team's fate is decided and I get a better idea of the Turkey Day weather forecast. We talked over the situation with him the other night. The truth is, much of me just wants to stay home and relax. These last few weeks have been demanding, and some extra rest would be very welcome.

I didn't feel rested when I visited N this week--our first visit since my wife and I had dinner with her just before my wife's trip started. She could see I was looking tired, so we took it easy and laughed at some DVDs. We watched the Marx Brothers in "Animal Crackers"; several silent shorts featuring Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton; and several episodes of "You Bet Your Life."

One YBYL entry featured 1950s hipster comedian Lord Buckley, a tall, well-dressed, aristocratic-looking man who was invited by Groucho to give the audience part of his hip version of Marc Antony's funeral oration from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." It starts, "Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies, knock me your lobes!"

Oh, yes! I am definitely going to have to learn more about Lord Buckley.

Modern art on the road

I got a call last night from my wife--her bus had just arrived at its destination in Branson, Mo., and she was calling from her motel. Sounds like a nice room--she said it has a whirlpool and everything. Well!

I had sent her a couple text messages earlier in the day. Before she left, I showed her how to send and receive texts. I asked her, and yes, she did receive them and read them. Later, after the call. I texted her with an added thought--and I got a text reply. I texted back congratulations.

The trip, she said, was uneventful. One attraction they expected to see along the way was a place that boasted the world's biggest pecan. But a road apparently was closed, and the bus couldn't find another way to get there. Bottom line: They didn't see the pecan. Awww!

Today (Tuesday), they will see three shows in Branson. Sounds like they will be busy.

I dropped her off Sunday at 8 a.m. It's a really big bus, like the one last year. Don't think I have ever ridden on a bus that nice.

The night before she left, we had a nice visit with my friend, N, who lives a few miles away. We met at a place where N and I eat from time to time and had a pizza--they have really good pizzas.

N grabbed the bill. The waitress put it in the middle of the table at an inopportune moment--I had a piece of pizza in my right hand. My left hand darted out, but her right hand beat me to it. We fight over that whenever we go out--except when we went out to mark her birthday in late July. That night, I paid, and she left the tip. Otherwise, it's "Don't argue with your elders!" (She's about three years older than me.)

The three of us had a nice chat. We talked about my wife's trip, N's rescue dogs, her kids and grandkids, our kids. This and that. The topic somehow got around to chocolate, and it turns out that both of them like dark chocolate. N remembered she had a nice, rich dark chocolate bar in her truck, so she gave it to my wife when we were saying good bye. They hugged. It seemed to go very well.

We went back to the motel and went to bed early. Sunday morning, she got on the bus, and I headed back east, accompanied only by my own thoughts. They can be strange thoughts, you know.

I started thinking about ... modern art. Specifically, modern art on the road. Right on the road. What could have led to that? Well, this is what I was looking at ...



This is the two-lane highway, with the rising sun shining off all the squiggles and wiggles of tar they have put on over the years, apparently to seal cracks. Some sections of the highway have been repaved in recent years and are nice and uniform. The older parts look like this ...



You may also be able to see the rumble strips they put on the highways in the last year or so--the middle of the road and at the shoulders. That's going to be very handy in winter, when we have snow.

The state of Michigan can't afford to plow roads as much as it used to, so if you have to go somewhere in winter, especially at night, you may have to deal with snow-covered roads. The scary part is that the snow covers the pavement markings, so you can't see whether you are in the proper lane ... or edging into the other lane or onto the shoulder. A gentle rumble will tell me to turn the wheel a little and move back the other way.

All the highway lines are reflective now, of course. But I'm old enough to remember when they weren't. That was long before I started driving, but I remember my dad having to cope with that. Also, are you old enough to remember before highway signs had reflective paint? Back then, they put little glass reflectors on them, like this one. I used my flash so you could see them better ...



Guess I got sidetracked.

The sun rose higher as I kept driving east. Then, I saw something along the north side of the road. I pulled over and got my camera out ...



Hey! Don't you know that's a dangerous thing for you to do? Especially in Michigan during the first half of November. Don't you know what happens on Nov. 15? ...



I guess he knows.

Later, I passed the big marsh near the county line. It looks the way it did a couple weeks ago, thanks to our rainy summer ...



Since then, I found a photo I took at the same place back in September 2009. How different it looked only 13 months earlier, back when the western U.P. was in a severe drought! ...



Tomorrow, I'm going to a different marsh. This one is the Horicon Marsh, down in Wisconsin. I wrote about that trip earlier. This is the soonest I could travel south, and I was worried the geese would be gone by the time I get there. But it's been a fairly mild fall in the Upper Midwest, and those Arctic winds from the Canadian prairies haven't arrived yet. I lucked out on the weather, I think.

I plan to leave as early as I can Wednesday morning and drive straight down to the marsh (4+ hours). After my cameras and I are satisfied, I return north to Oshkosh, call my friends S and T and take them out to dinner. From there, we will go to my motel and the swimming pool. We went to the pool with S and her husband several times before, but I haven't been there with S and T. This time, it's the three of us.

Unlike past visits, I don't think we will take turns using the bathroom to change into swimsuits before going to the pool. None of us are especially shy.

Odds are, we will head to the whirlpool, located near the pool. S likes to go there. It's very warm and bubbly and relaxing in the whirlpool, with strong jets of water stirring up the surface. We'll all enjoy the water and try to guess what's happening below the surface. With all the whirlpool action and bubbles, you can't see what's happening below the surface. I think we will be sitting close together, enjoying being together again.

Eventually, we will go back to my room and make sure we are all very dry before we go back out in the cold weather so I can take them home. Nobody wants to catch a cold, right?

Thursday morning, I'm driving back north. I probably have to cover a volleyball regional championship game that night. The semifinal game was Tuesday night--that's why I can't leave till Wednesday.

Our football team won last Friday, so they play in the regional championship game this Friday night--on their home field, just 15 miles away. Two weeks later ... well, you know about that.

My older son called Sunday night, and we talked about it. He and his girlfriend are going for Thanksgiving dinner with her family, but we will be able to spend time with them earlier in the day. He said he would show me where we went last year and had that "buffaloaf" for Thanksgiving dinner. Yummmmm!

Of course ... look, folks, our team has gone to the state finals in Detroit for six consecutive years. They are going for No. 7 this fall. If I go, my wife says she will come along with me. But I want to stay home. It's such a long drive, and I'm so tense because of all the stuff I have to do and have to remember related to the state finals. It's definitely not a pleasure trip.

It's much different if I don't have to cover a game. Then it becomes a pleasure trip, and if the weather is behaving, we may go down there for a visit, either over Thanksgiving or the weekend before. But that way, we can set our own schedule and relax. But if the team keeps winning, I don't get many options.

Anyway, we'll figure it all out. At least, thanks to my trip, it won't be so lonely at home. Volleyball Tuesday and Thursday, football on Friday, I'm out of town on Wednesday, and she gets back home Saturday night.

OK, time to send her another text.

Two different trips

My wife's theme next week should be "On the Road Again." Either the Willie Nelson or the Canned Heat version.

She is preparing for another bus tour.

Her first was last September, to Branson, Mo., to see the country music shows there. This new tour is also to Branson, but the special appeal this time is a series of Christmas-related shows the tour group will attend. That's right up her alley--she loves Christmas-themed shows.

As last time, I will stay back here, keeping the kitties company in the increasingly chilly U.P. I've got the girls volleyball districts this week. I'm pretty sure at least one team will make it through to next week's regional tourney, so I'm going to be supporting the girls. (Umm, did I phrase that right?)

Also, one of our football teams is in the playoffs, and they play Friday night. This is the team that has gone to the state finals in Detroit for the last five years--but their 2010 tourney trail could end Friday night. Maybe. Time will tell.

However things turn out, on Saturday afternoon I am driving her about 90 miles west to the place where she gets on the bus Sunday morning--we will stay at a motel Saturday night. It's just a few miles from where my friend N lives; on Saturday evening, we plan to go out for dinner with her. My wife hasn't met N yet--we almost did earlier this year, but the trip was called off for other reasons.

Before she gets on the bus, I'm going to try to give her a crash course in sending/receiving text messages, which can be a handy skill during a trip/tour like this. She has a Tracfone. Now I have to show her how to send texts. And this time, don't leave the charger home!

My wife would like me to come along on these trips with her; she says she would even pay my way! But the trips seem to be scheduled when life at work is especially hectic. And we've got a small staff. You can count the reporters on our staff with one hand and still have a couple fingers left over.

She has expressed interest in a cruise tentatively planned next May--the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, etc. But that's in the middle of the spring season. Also England, Wales and Ireland--but that's next fall. And let's not forget that I've got places I like to go/things I like to do during summer, too, and two weeks of vacation simply won't cover it.

She doesn't have to worry about stuff like that. I do.

What she really ought to do is find a good, dependable friend who is able to go on trips and tours with her. She tried to interest one of her sisters in this trip, but that didn't work. If she finds a reliable friend who is able to travel--and yes, I have no problem if it's a male--that would solve that problem.

Eventually, I will be able to retire. That's not too many years away.

****

While she is out of town next week, I'm taking two days off for a trip of my own. This one is very special to me.

Several times while my brother and I were growing up near Milwaukee, my mom and dad would take us north to the Horicon Marsh, which is part of the North American flyway for Canada geese--it's a national wildlife refuge now. We would see incredible numbers of geese, honk-honking around in the sky or enjoying the marsh--they rest and feed there before resuming their flight south. With so many thousands of geese in one place, it's a very noisy place.

It's been many, many years since we last went there. And now I am the only one left. I'm pretty sure I took my wife there once (maybe before we were married), but that would still be decades ago--we moved to the western U.P. in the late '70s.

So next week, I'm taking my cameras along to record this incredible sight. I'm leaving early Wednesday morning and should get there in the early afternoon. That night, I'll visit my friends S and T--I'll take them out to dinner, and maybe we will enjoy the pool at my motel. (I won't spend the night with them this time.) Thursday morning, I'm driving back north. Not much time off, but you take what you can get

****

I will eventually write something about Tuesday's election. Not today. Let the dust settle a while. Let the poison leach out of the airwaves.