Bees, Baby Deer, & Bicycles Oh My!

We live in a place where the possibility of hitting a deer with your car at least once in your lifetime is highly likely. Columbia and the surrounding areas are full of deer and other animals alike that unfortunately have the chance of running across or jumping out in front of you. I’ve always thought that if I could have a super power it would be to save all the cats, squirrels, raccoons, deer and any other animal from getting hit by vehicles. This definitely stems from losing one too many cats to busy roads and fast drivers, but that is a story for another time…

In my personal experience, I have never hit a deer with my car- yes I just knocked on some wood because I hope my luck continues! However, recently I had the most unusual experience happen to me. I was riding my road bike at around 7:30pm with my husband Mike, his friend Tony, and his best friend’s dad Jim. We went to visit a job site that his friend Jon was working at and when we ended up leaving the sun was going down. Now I have to say too that if anyone knows me 99.9% of the time I wear my helmet and rarely do I not. I happened to have my headlamp attached to my camelback that I was wearing that night and I decided to wear the headlamp and clicked my helmet onto the front of my bike. Mind you, we were maybe less than 10 minutes from home and I’ve ridden my bike numerous times along this road. As we turned onto North Airport Road I was mainly behind everyone because I had the light on to lead the way, I got a little ahead of myself and as I was coming up on the left of Mike I thought to myself that I needed to get back a little further. No sooner had this thought entered my brain when a small baby deer isntantly impacted the center of my bicycle. It all happened so fast, the deer was small enough that I was able to not fall but came to a quick stop on the side of the road. I looked down at my bike left and right to quickly asses the damage. Tony and Jim came up to me to make sure that I was alright when I saw a large tuft of fur on my chain my heart dropped. I asked, “Oh my gosh is the deer alright?!” and as I turned around I saw a crumpled little deer in the middle of the road. I immediately burst into tears, thinking great, I just killed a baby deer.

Luckily, Jon was following behind us to the shop and his headlights allowed us to see more of what was going on. I love animals, especially the baby kind I normally lose my shit when we’re driving and I see sheep, goats, deer, you name it. Jon jokingly thought that I was just crying about a dead baby deer in the road until he found out what actually happened. In his defense I totally would cry about that too knowing me… Mike said that as soon as he heard me ask about the deer he knew that he had to go and check on it. I ran over behind Mike to see if the deer was ok. The deer’s eyes were open and alert, it appeared as though he or she was as stunned as I was. Mike slowly went to pick up the baby and as soon as he did the little deer let out a cry- not a sad one just to let us know he was okay. As soon as Mike set the deer down on the side of the road, it jumped up quickly and ran off through the barbed wire fence and away with the other deer.

It was a happy ending to say the least, I didn’t get hurt and the baby deer ended up being okay. It was a rush of adrenaline and I’m still a little baffled to this day. Afterwards we were all talking about it because it was just such a bizarre incident. Tony said that he has ridden thousands of miles on road bikes, and mountain bikes alike all over and no one he knows has ever hit a baby deer like that. It’s just ironic because weird and bizarre stuff has happened to me along these lines and I’ve always told myself that I should document and share them, so here I am! I don’t go out of my way to tempt fate, I literally just love riding my bike and lately it’s always been something that comes up.

The next time we rode, the guys were all ahead of me on a downhill and the shirt I was wearing was loose in the neck. What happened? A poor little bee smacked me in the chest, got stuck in my shirt and stung me right above my collarbone. The guys only realized that something was wrong when I didn’t come around the corner, I had come to a stop at the base of the hill holding my shirt out, crying (of course), and because it was just under my line of vision I did the best I could to grab the bee off. Mike ended up picking the stinger out, but man for the next three hours at least I had vivid sharp shooting pain eminating from the sting. I haven’t been stung by a bee for years, and I hope to dodge them in my future rides so they can keep on living their happy bee lives.

I am looking forward to new adventures outside. Lately the smoke due to all the fires in California has been truly awful, but I’m hoping to get outside more soon with friends, family, and the dogs and enjoy the great outdoors. I want to expand my knowledge of local hikes, biking trails, camping, and share it all as I go along. It is so easy to fall into the cycle of just going through the motions of life. I want to mix things up a little bit every once in a while. I also want to improve my health and stamina which I hope will in turn inspire others to opt outside. If you’ve made it this far, thank you. If you have any interest in going on a bike ride, or a walk, or a hike please let me know because I would love to go.