COWS

Tuesday, I drove 6 hours north. Really cold up there! Surpising how cold such a few hundred miles makes. There were very large chunks of ice floating in the river. We had a trial on Wednesday. Four very difficult hours on the stand. After court, I chose to drive Highway 97 home. Highway 97 is a good 2 lane state highway. I chose to go 97 because even though I have to drive slower I save about 1/4 tank of gasoline by taking the shorter route.

So, I'm driving along admiring the country scene. About every 5 to 7 miles there will be a little bitty town of 200 to 500 people and that slows things down, but it also provides little gas stations where you can get help if needed, can purchase coffee, can use public bathrooms and purchase gas if needed. In this job, I take this route often enough that I sort of know some of the folks who work in those little stations. In between the tiny little towns there are farms--acres and acres of corn and multiple fields dotted with cattle and horses. So, I'm driving along and suddenly in the distance I see approximately 30 steers--actually two of them were cows desperately in need of milking. There were no bulls.

I know bulls. When I was a young girl, I was at Uncle Harold's farm one summer day and one of his bulls got mad at us kids and chased us. I got over the fence, but he was running hard, snorting and steaming. He was running so hard that he rammed his head through the fence. So, I know to stay away from bulls. These were all steers except for two cows.

I slowed down to a stop and honked and honked at them to get out of the road. At first, they looked at me--nodding their heads pleasantly and switching their tails now and again. But, I kept honking and all the steers and one cow moved off to the shouldeer where they stood nodding at me and switching their tails now and again. One cow was sprawled in the middle of the road with her tail spread out behind her. She didn't appear sick. She appeared relaxed. I think she may have run off previously because she was wearing a collar with a big bell. Anyway she remained sprawled in the middle of the road, nodding at me and occasionally flopping her tail. She totally ignored my repeated honking. I didn't want to run over her and she'd flop her tail out full length behind her. I didn't want to drive over her tail because that would probably have hurt her. Clearly her intellectual functioning was already impaired. There's no reason to intentionally hurt a stupid person or a stupid cow. The only thing left to do was drive way off on the shoulder to get around her. This whole cow incident added about 45 minutes to my trip home.

When I got to the next town, I stopped in the gas station and told them that about 3 miles back down the road somebody's cows had escaped. Eric said I should have called the police, but I didn't even know what small towns I was between. I just knew I was on 97 somewhere between Galesburg and Springfield.

Taking 97 normally saves me about 1/4 tank of gas, but I 74 doesn't have loose cows. I think next time, I probably need to take I 74.

I never cease to be amazed at how glamorous my life has become.