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June 14, 2004

travel tales, part 1

Slowly but surely I will write up the travelogue and post pictures. It will have to wait till after I get some work done (paying work, woo-hoo!) however. Until you guys start paying me a salary, web design and articles have to come first. Haha!

Anyway, here are some signs I saw along the way. I unfortunately didn't get pictures of them, as I was driving at a nice clip as I passed them.

In Oklahoma: "First Free Will Baptist Church," on the side of a building in OK. I noted that it doesn't say "of Blanktown" because it is perhaps the first and only Free Will Baptist Church in the United States. It is likely the red-headed step-child of Baptist churches across the country.

On the Will Rogers Turnpike in MO: "Failure to pay toll will be strictly enforced." Well, they must be slacking, because I paid my toll just fine. No one forced me not to pay. I almost wish they had...

A billboard in Jefferson City, MO: "TESTICLE FESTIVAL June 4-6." I asked my cousin about this, and she said it is a yearly event. "They make you eat testicles," she said, conspiratorially. I assumed they were bull testicles, aka "mountain oysters" as we call them here in the South. We didn't go to the festival, but she said she'd give me one of her shirts from a festival past. I snuck out without the shirt. If they can't come up with a more clever name, then I don't want to promote their heathen practices! :)

Another difference between the North and the South: down here we have armadillo, skunk and 'possum road kill. Up there they have DEER! I can see hitting a little armadillo, so easily missed while driving, but I figure you would see a deer on the approach. Many of them looked almost plastic, with their legs sticking straight out as if they were just tipped over. Have any of you hit a deer while driving? How do you not avoid them? Does it ruin your car grill? I just can't imagine hitting a deer on the highway.

Travel 10:40 AM | Permalink

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Comments

Geezum, people *die* hitting deer up here. And moose, too. You're going 70 mph on the highway and suddenly there's a 1000 lb. animal in front of you. Someone where I used to work had one run right into the passenger door his car - he wasn't going very fast.

Just found this on metafilter - didn't read them all, but you get the idea:
http://my.work.has.lame.filters.metafilter.com/mefi/29983

Posted by: Leslee at Jun 14, 2004 12:00:15 PM

holy cow! you can tell I haven't driven up north much. And I have never hit a deer. Hope I never ever do. I'd be a basket case, assuming I survived.

Posted by: Alicia at Jun 14, 2004 12:22:31 PM

Yes, they total cars.
They leap out in front of cars and that's how it happens here a lot. They are unbelievable leapers and bounders -- so fast. Perhaps they are being chased when it happens.

Posted by: Nasreena at Jun 14, 2004 8:02:33 PM

Speaking of roadkill, when we took our cross-country journey we noticed that all of the snapping turtles we saw on the roadside were dead. I wondered how or why someone could not avoid them considering they move slow and are so large.

On the morning we left Missouri we bore witness to a box turtle migration. We saw dozens of turtles trying to cross the road. Very odd.

When I lived in Pennsylvania, which has an over population of deer, it was common to see them bloating in the ditch. They had the appearance of an upside down rocking horse.

The problem is that they jump out in the road and then get blinded by the headlights. If you speed chances are you don't have time to avoid them. I always drove slow and cautiously on the stretches that were frequently littered with their bodies. If you drive cautiously then you can avoid them. Personally, I think some people just like to hit them. Makes them feel "manly" or something.

Posted by: Lori at Jun 14, 2004 8:14:44 PM

Joe's here and so we're conspiring on this note. Yeah, we'll agree with everyone else and mention that deer totally wreck cars up here. My father once hit a deer and it ruined the front end of his car, cost nearly two grand to repair as well. Luckily he wasn't hurt. My mother once saw a deer get hit a few cars in front of her and the poor thing was hurled up into the air and over the person's car. The real problem with deer getting hit up here, aside from them just leaping out from the middle of the woods onto the highway, is also that up here the roads can be very uphill and winding, thus you never see a deer until it's far too late. Anyways, yeah, driving is a whole different experience up here than down south. I remember loving those long straight country roads when I was down in Kentucky.

Posted by: David at Jun 14, 2004 9:26:36 PM

That just reminded me of one time when I lived in North Carolina. I was in a prop plane in the process of landing, and NC, having such a large deer population that the hunting limit was at 6 when I left (as opposed to here in PA that has a 1 limit as far as I am aware of), when a deer ran onto the runway. Combination of Jurasic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark (when the propeller hit the large german sgt). A lot of cars have deer whistles on the fronts here that emit a high pitched whistle that drive deer away. Just thought I'd share. ;)

Posted by: Los Monos De La Muerte at Jun 15, 2004 10:35:20 AM

Living in the country, even in the south, can be dangerous to the deer population as well. I hit one a couple years ago and I WAS a basket case, ask Anne. I swerved, so it just banged in the fender and the passenger door, but I didnt have time to avoid the poor, wild, leaping thing. I drive much MUCH slower now and still have to slam on the brakes at least once a month to avoid them.
What's weird though is when you're driving down the main road in town and you see a dead COW in the median. Ok, deer I can understand, bounding around fields and occassionally into the road, but a COW??

They don't bound... they GRAZE.

I chalked it up to living in my inbred, backwoods town, and was GLAD I had just moved in and hadn't been born here.

Posted by: Kate at Jun 20, 2004 10:01:55 PM