Nilknarf News

90 miles east of St. Louis, and still going strong.

Beautiful day here, but it was nasty earlier in western Maryland and West Virginia... cold, snow on the ground and blowing around, but not precipitating when I was going through.

Deer. Lots and lots of deer. Starting off at about 01:30 local time, I had just turned the corner on to highway 2 when I saw the first pair... I had reached full speed by the time that I saw them by the side of the road. They looked up when I went by, and the crossed the road pretty quickly when I passed, I saw them in the mirror.

Deer. Everywhere... dead ones, still-living ones.

Out on the highways, I see crosses, white crosses with inscriptions on them. "We (heart) you Tim" catches my eye. Before the day is over, I will have seen probably a hundred of these, markers where loved ones ended their lives. Very sad.

Luckily, deer mothers and loved ones aren't Christians, otherwise there would be millions of crosses, the majority made of antlers tied together with sinew made from the beloved fawns.... well, the materials were handy... the deer moms, of course, would have to be very careful when they put the crosses up, so as not to stare into the headlights.....

But seriously, folks... have you ever looked at the path that a deer travels when it's run over by an 18-wheeler? Grisly, to be polite about it. They are literally skinned in the millisecond after they die, and the pieces are spit out to the side of the road. I doubt that the truckers even slow down after they've hit a few.

The higway patrol radios the locations of the carcases, and people who have asked to be notified are notified. The HP tags the deer, and it's illegal for the deer to be in the posession of someone not carrying the proper paperwork.

I'm assuming that the carcases are used to feed dogs and the like, but there would probably be nothing wrong with it bad enough to prevent human consumption...

I'm sitting here writing on a picnic table at a rest stop east of St. Louis, it's about 60°F and beautiful, but there is a front poised on the northwest horizon. There are ladybugs crawling all over everything, I'm having to brush them off of the keyboard...

And how I want to get home to Karen! I will be there in five hours, if I continue!