Moped rally & hitting a deer

Let's start off with the good first: moped rally.  My friend, KZ, and I went up to Pittsburgh for the moped rally.  I attached the first two pictures of us getting ready for the long ride on Saturday morning and then our first stop at Trax Farm outside of Pittsburgh in the afternoon.  We got there Friday night in time for a night ride around downtown and around the rest of the city.  Great ride, although my taillight blew out from to high of RPMs going down the hills in Pittsburgh.  We hung out and socialized with everyone later that night, but after anchoring Friday morning and being awake since 2AM, I called it an early night and went back to our host's house a few hours before the evening fun wrapped up.  I don't regret it a lot because I was completely refreshed for Saturday...

We had a GREAT vegan breakfast and left for the long ride a little after noon.  It was a fantastic 70 mile ride around Pennsylvania with rolling hills and one mountain I had to pedal up only realize someone went off the route.  Blew my taillight going back down that hill.  We finished up the night at Spak Brothers with delicious vegan pizza and subs.  Rather than staying and socializing with everyone Saturday night, we thought we would be proactive and head home that evening rather Sunday morning.... That is when the fun ended....

We got about 40 minutes out of Pittsburgh when a deer jumped the guard rail and ran into our path.  I slammed on the brakes, but there wasn't enough room between the buck and I.  We had slowed to about 30 or 40 miles per hour and surprisingly the air bags did not deploy.  There are a lot of other details of the accident and what happened afterwards, but I would rather not think about it...  Luckily both myself and KZ escaped with no injuries, but as for my truck..... not the case, take a look.  My radiator as well as transmission cooler and A/C cooler and pipes were busted.  Not to mention body damage to the hood and bumper.  I was hoping to try and fix it today and drive back, but there were too many missing parts to fix and some would need to be ordered.  Regardless, it is not runnable in its current state because it would blow up a few miles down the road.

The tow truck driver took us back to his shop, a gravel yard in the middle of the wilderness, and KZ and I slept in the lifeless truck for a couple hours until my brother, Clark, arrived.  He drove up his van and we loaded the three mopeds and ALL of the belongings into the van just in case the truck was totaled.  It was quite a scary ordeal, but hats off to KZ for his understanding and comedic spin on the situation and my brother Clark for coming up and getting us while he was sick.  I cannot forget to thank Dawn for trying to come up and get us and getting phone numbers for me from home; she is a great friend and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with her.  KZ, Clark, and I finally made it home, I cleaned up from the rally, and came in to work.  I will grab a couple of hours of sleep tonight and back in to anchor the morning news on Monday.  Now I will wait to see if it is totaled and hopefully it isn't and I get it back soon, but again at least KZ and I were uninjured. Have a good one!

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael