I also felt a second jolt which I realized was the rest of the deer hitting my rear driver's side door after the impact with the mirror spun the animal around. Almost immediately, I could smell the very strong scent of deer and I had a frozen image of an explosion of fur next to my face. The sun was setting to my left and I caught a glimpse of the fur cloud in the afternoon sunlight.

I pulled over at the first rest stop to inspect the damage to my car. The mirror had snapped off so cleanly that it almost looked like it had never been there at all; only an empty housing was still connected to the car. Even the electric wires had been sheared off as though sliced off with a razor. The only other damage to my car was a shallow depression in the rear...
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