Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Riding through a Prairie Dog Gauntlet

There's a neighborhood road on my regular commute to work that takes me to Havana road and the back way to the United Airlines training facility I work at as a contractor. I use this road because its got very little traffic, its only two lane and fairly safe.

Not today! Apparently, there's quite the bustling/growling prairie dog colony all along this stretch of my commute now.

from google images

I had to hit the brakes pretty good to avoid running over three of these varmints who decided to dash from one side of the street to the other as I approached doing perhaps 30mph.

After that I swear there must have been at least 15 more eating or watching me go by from both sides of the road as I prepared to hit the brakes just in case!

There's plenty of evidence on the road itself of previous varmints who were not quick enough to avoid being run over.

I get to run the gauntlet again this afternoon on the way home.......it's usually deer that motorcyclists need to worry about in terms of animal hazards, now I get to add prairie dogs to the list.

2 comments:

irondad said...

Why did the chicken cross the road? To prove to the Prairie Dog that it could be done.

Maybe it's time for a lesson or two in obstacle surmounting!

Seriously, here's two words of advice, my friend.

"Eyes up!"

redlegsrides said...

irondad, my eyes were up! that's how spotted the little varmints when they decided to go from stock still to running across my path. : )

Yeah, dodging was an option, but I could see they were going to clear with my slowing....