So, I rode home with my mom last weekend. My mom likes to drive through Cameron Pass, which is this narrow, windy road (it's very scenic and quiet, though), so we went through there. While I was sleeping, a moose got onto the road fast enough to where my mom didn't see it to slow down in time. We hit it going around 35, which was lucky, as it would have been much more catastrophic if we'd been going much faster.
I don't know how many people here are familiar with Moose, but the things are huge. The one we hit was probably a yearling, but it was still very big. Probably bigger than a large horse (and heavier).
http://sidoh.dark-wire.net/upload/files/7P9SCHZGGS-426469a3f71b8f11.jpgAs you can see, it crinkled up the hood pretty well and bent some of the internals (I'm no engine-savvy person, so I have no idea what actually got hurt). No further damage as far as we could see, though. The airbags didn't even deploy, which was nice, but it was still a pretty interesting encounter.
As a funny-ish side story, after hitting it, we drove a few miles up the road to find a place where we could use a phone. We came across some retired people that ran some guest cabins that let us use their phone. After we called the sheriff, he was showing us some pictures of moose he had on his computer. After a few cycled through, a younger looking one popped up and he said "Yep... there's the one you probably hit right there." lol.
As a less funny side story, my sister remarked after we told her about the deputy going off to find and put down the moose: "I hit the moose, but I did not shoot the deputy."
