Walk #67: Anti (Eco) Social...

Walk Duration: Twenty minutes..

A group of wild turkeys crossing the road.

Ever receive one of these calls?

"Honey, I had an accident...I'm okay, well, a little sore. I think I'll have to go to the emergency room. It was a head on crash. The other car is totaled. Our car still runs. You don't need to come home..."

So, of course, I had to leave work and drive the three and a half hour drive home. Wouldn't you?

Joni (my spouse) is sore. Whiplash. She got hit by a youngster driving too fast as Joni made a turn. Joni was back from the ER when I got home. I took the kids off to Paradise to get them fed; and to get some pain meds for Joni.

I have a theory that people who take a daily walk drive a reasonable speed. First off, those who walk probably enjoy nature--which means we would rather not squish things that attempt to cross (or gather things from) roads--things like people, turkeys (see the photo above), skunks, coyotes, owls, hawks, turkey vultures, squirrels, mice, possums, raccoons, deer, elk, moose, bear and even cougars (a mountain lion got run over two days ago in the Napa Valley).

Walkers aren't adrenaline junkies. They amble along; admiring this; sniffing that--content to watch clouds and dream dreams.

Tearing along at sixty, seventy or eighty miles an hour in a rural area is an anti-social action. Anti eco-social to all the critters who inhabit such areas. Jail speeders, take their licenses, make them do community service (preferably picking up dead carcasses after they have been decaying in 100 degree heat!), send them to wilderness re-education camps. Enough!

So, after dark, when all the excitement was over, I took a quick twenty minute stroll....