Along the Way

I turned onto the highway, the final leg of my journey to visit Snowball. My light immediately caught the glowing eyes of something wandering in the road. The eyes darted off the road, then back into the road several times. They couldn't seem to make up their mind. As I drove closer the eyes revealed themselves to be a fox. The fox had found a roadkill & even though my high beams were barring down on him, he could not leave his treasure behind. He was trying to pull along his feast but the tires that had arrived there first had thoroughly glued the snack to the pavement. His eyes never leaving the roadkill, the fox jumped off into the grass.

Three deer were in the road as I approached, I slowed with caution out of habit & it paid off this time. All three could have easily veered into the forest as they ran from my oncoming lights. They panicked & opted to run back out into the road right in front of me. Then instead of continuing across the highway they veered away & ran in front of me for about 40 yards. One of them got a clue, jumped from the middle of the road all the way across a lane, the median & a ditch, landing on the rise beside the road & dropped away from sight. The others followed, though not in as graceful a fashion. One of them barreled through at ground level kicking up dust & grass the whole way. The final deer decided to try the graceful jump the first had done. This did not work out as the deer plowed head first into the ground after tripping, she quickly regained & trotted away deciding not to try the graceful deer thing again.

This animal was unexpected as she ran into the road. What is she? She looks like a weasel, fully 2 times the size of a cat. Her markings were black on top with white on the bottom. She moved like a woman, as her front end went one way, her back end swung wide the other way. She snaked her body across the road quickly & disappeared down the ditch. I wish she would have lingered longer. She was interesting.

A large white owl sat on a fence post & watched as I went by. I wonder what the owl thinks as the lights approach then swing by on the road. Most animals seem to think along the lines of prey or danger. The owl was not far enough off the road not to feel danger. Is Mr. Owl contemplating the taste of those large animals with the bright eyes that keep growling by?

A regular house cat slinks across the road. The cat was low to the ground as she went across the road. Her body language I have seen when scolding pet's in the past. I think she knew she was not supposed to be in the road & now that she was caught by my headlights showed her shame.

Not 10 yards past the cat a field mouse ran like a bullet across the road. I bet that cat would sure like to know about this.

I began to think, outside of the fox that had welcomed me to this highway, the size of the animals was going from large to small. Deer, Weasel, Owl, Cat, Mouse. I started contemplating what could be smaller. Then I thought, how did a house cat get out here in the middle of the woods. Must be a cabin or something out here. I figured the way things work in this life are unexpected. So the next thing fate will send to the spotlight on the highway will probably be something like a bear or a moose or something huge. Right as I was pondering this. I had to slam the brakes as something huge in front of me froze in the headlights. It was a homeless man, pushing his shopping cart across the road. He froze like a deer in the headlight. What the heck is a homeless man doing pushing his shopping cart down the middle of a rural highway in the middle of the forest? I slowed to pass him, he did not move until the lights had passed, then quickly pushed away. I saw he had a large item in his basket. It stood about 7 feet above the edge of the basket. The blue tarp covering it was too small & left a portion exposed. It seemed to be a large black monolith. I'm not going to wonder about this, chalk it up to one of those David Lynchian scenes where there are no true answers, only the underlying feeling of the vast unknown.