My mind meandered. Roadkill. It may have just been a coincidence, but there seemed to have been a pattern to the roadkill. In Kentucky, the primary victims were armadillos. Otherwise known as a “Texas speed bumps,” armadillos, as the name would suggest, are so sturdy that after they are hit, they appear to be sleeping on their backs on the side of the road.
Missouri is opossum territory. Unlike the armadillos, possums splat into a bloody white-furred mess. They are identifiable by their long cord-like tail that seems unaffected by cars or trucks.
Rabbits abound in Kansas; I saw plenty of dead bunnies being picked over by crows and buzzards. Everything likes to eat a rabbit.
Dead raccoons are found in all the states I passed through, but they were especially prevalent in Nebraska. It was in Nebraska that I was first struck by the roadside carnage. Because they are social animals, there were a number of clusters of a half-dozen mushed raccoons.
I wasn’t thinking about roadkill when I started out back in South Dakota, but the distinctive scent of skunk flooded through the air vents at least three times. I hadn’t smelled skunk for years, and I kind of liked it. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because I associate the aroma with my childhood dog. He never learned.
As I finally crossed into Illinois, numerous fawns raised their heads, twitched their tails and went back to munching roadside grass. Momma deer were generally watching from the treeline nearby. Over the first two hours in Illiinois, I counted the carcasses of three fawns twisted grotesquely by the side of the road. As I turned left down the CR, country road, I took my foot off the gas and flicked on the high beams. If I hit an adult buck, it could be two-way roadkill.
No animals (except flying insects) were harmed in the making of this road trip.