Four Little Ladies in a Yaris

Posted by Granny Girl

Last summer I drove with my sister and two cousins from Arlington, Texas to Branson, Missouri.  We took my Toyota Yaris because of the fuel economy (and because I have control issues about driving). Fortunately, we’re all small.  The tallest one is probably five feet two.  We managed to get most of the luggage in the tiny trunk space, with a couple of odd pieces ending up in the back floorboard.  A Yaris doesn’t have a hump in the floor so that gives us more room. 

On the way, we were travelling down a winding Arkansas highway in the dark when we saw police car lights up ahead.  I steered into the left lane and slowed down a little to avoid any mishaps when suddenly I saw a deer carcass in my lane.  The policeman had stopped to help the driver that had just killed a deer!  It was too risky to swerve at that speed so I went straight over it.   Just imagine a small car with four screaming ladies in it going over a dead deer.  Thump.  Thump.

We immediately started smelling a bad odor.  At a gas station up ahead we stopped to assess the damage.  Some Arkansans sitting outside the station said the smell was probably from forest fires nearby.  We checked under the car and didn’t see anything, so we headed on down the road.

The next day the smell was still hovering around my car.  I looked under the car, and there was a big blob of deer carcass in the middle of the front axle,  hanging down all glistening and gross!  More smell was coming from all the singed deer hair that was splattered on the back hatch.  Ewwww!  We took it to the car wash and blasted the hanging blob with high pressure water, but it stayed.  At least it quit stinking.

The rest of the trip was fun.  My parents live in Branson, so we stayed with them and had a great visit.  We shopped, saw shows, ate out and just had a blast!

Here's my mom and two cousins posing in the $1 million bathrooms in Shoji Tabuchi's theater.