As I crossed Number Four Bridge, to the right, I noticed maybe three small groups of those large white pelicans herding, corralling some small fish on which they were feeding. It was low tide. The whites don’t dive for food as do their smaller cousins, the browns. They just do the rodeo thing and circle and flap and eat with less effort than needed by the dive. Could it be that that’s why they are bigger?
On up 24 towards Cypress Station was a dead coon, a victim, a road kill. A friend of mine is convinced that most road kills are intentional, not on the part of the victim but by the killer, the perpetrator, the driver. I tend to agree.
A flock of buzzards, black and turkey mixed, hang out on that same stretch. They begrudgingly moved away. A stop at Cypress Station. Why? I don’t know, just a tradition on the way out of town, a stop at Cypress Station. After a little banter and a modest purchase, on back up 24 went me and that red Honda.
On the pavement to the right was a small grey-white owl, another victim. Left onto 345 and on up are those treacherous curves where we have lost a couple of friends in recent years and just beyond, again on the right, were a large bunch of turkeys, I would guess thirty or more, grazing like cattle in an open field.
The traffic that time of day is heavy, people rushing to work or taking the kids to the school or for whatever reason. Why is it that half of them don’t use their headlights in that rainy, foggy condition? Maybe they are centered in on themselves and not on those others on the road who would like to know they are there before they arrive. What do you think?
Then left onto 336 over to 347. I slowed. The more I slowed, the more I knowed. Have you noticed when it is cloudy, low clouds, and rainy, you can see back into the woods better and on over the fields the same? A coyote came out of the left, crossed the road, saw me, and in an easy gallop went about forty yards down the ditch and turned into the woods on the right. As I passed I saw him just at the edge looking my way, watching me as I passed.
Now I turn left onto 347. The road is humpy, bumpy there, I think from those eighteen wheelers, those pulp wood trucks, and grooved, too, so in wet weather you tend to hydroplane in the lanes. So I moved to the center straddling that mid-stripe.
Off to the right were several large cattle feed lots. You can smell them a mile or so off, so you know what to expect. Have you noticed how in those low, overcast rainy, foggy, days you can make out all sorts of smells, or scents, from the woods or from whatever? I’m reminded of the words, “In the deep, dank, dark dungeons of Dere, in the misty mid-region of Weir…”, some of those words were Poe’s, some mine. That’s how the morning seemed. Yet less confining…
On the right on the power lines were many bluebirds puffed all out with their high red breasts displayed in full mating color. Speaking of color, the woods and the sides of the road, too, are coloring as the spring approaches. Take an early morning drive and notice the colors.
I was passed going the other way by no less than five pulp wood trucks. Now 347 is narrow and in need of repair. Most of those drivers are courteous and give you room. One came around a bend hogging the road much too fast for conditions, and even with the right two wheels of that little red Honda on the grass, it was close. His trailer was fishtailing, about to be jackknifing. I looked in the mirror. He recovered quite well. I recovered some time later, you know the adrenaline, the shakes, the “what ifs…”
A few hundred yards from the turn on to 24 and back to Cedar Key on the right halfway up the ditch was a familiar blue carton that once housed a dozen cans of Busch Light.
Take an early morning drive in the rain some day and tell us what you saw. Till then let’s find Trouble in Cedar Key.
