Amazing roadkill sights on Hwy. 54

  • armasighting.jpg
    As Greg and I sped along a rural high­way on the way to a meet­ing yes­ter­day, we had another amaz­ing ani­mal sight­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, this one was deceased. But we’re think­ing it still counts.

    The scenery had turned hilly, and I was in the mid­dle of say­ing some­thing really impor­tant (can’t remem­ber what now). So it’s all the more amaz­ing that as we went by at 70 mph., I just stopped in the mid­dle of my sen­tence while my brain processed some details about the lit­tle hud­dled car­cass we had just seen. Possum-sized, but not furry. Rat-tailed, but too big for a rat. And … a shell?

    I had to check with Greg, who was also look­ing a lit­tle stunned. “Was that …?”

    “Yes, it was. That was a [blankety-blank] armadillo.”

    Now, if you’re from Texas, that may be a big so-what. But we’re in Mis­souri, and I didn’t even know we had armadil­los. And just to make it totally weird, it looked like there was another dead armadillo about a half mile fur­ther up. Greg and I didn’t have time to go back and look at either of these, but we for sure put it on our to-do list for the trip back after the meeting.

    I can’t really tell you how much excite­ment the blankety-blank armadil­los caused Greg and I. We spec­u­lated all the way to our des­ti­na­tion how in the world they had got­ten from Texas to Mis­souri only to be whacked on High­way 54 before they had even had their mail forwarded.

    And com­ing back after the meet­ing, we craned our necks till it hurt to make sure we didn’t miss them. But nope, they were hard to miss. And there’s no way that was a rat or pos­sum or tur­tle. There was the lit­tle snout, the curved claws, and that elab­o­rately armored shell (which, in this case, had not been quite armored enough).

    Greg took cell phone pic­tures because … well, come on. Are any of your city friends going to believe you oth­er­wise? But I could see that post­ing a pic­ture of a dead ani­mal wouldn’t quite be appro­pri­ate for a nice blog like this one.

    So here’s an artist’s ren­di­tion of them in Armadillo Heaven.

    armaheaven.jpg

    (Deja vue: Other ani­mal sight­ings — live ones, by the way — recorded here have been owl, bald eagle and a baby cardinal/snake combo.)


    Related posts:

    1. The run­ning girl across the street
    2. 10:09 am — “I knew some­thing like this would hap­pen someday.”
    3. Rain, rain, go away. Because we need a place to pray.
    4. Oh cool!!

    March 26th, 2009 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • s-p 03.26.2009

    Armadil­los hap­pen to be one of my favorite things (much to my wife’s cha­grin). I have a stuffed one in our liv­ing room, and cou­ple of “toy” ones. “A Prayer for Owen Meany” intro­duced a lot of peo­ple to the joys of stuffed armadillos.

  • Greg

    The record needs to reflect that, as much as I was amazed and jazzed to see an actual freakin’ armadillo… I am actu­ally more impressed with Grace’s sketch of them in heaven.

    I mean… ant lol­lipops? GENIUS!

  • Mimi

    I agree, ant fla­vored lol­lipops are inspired.

    I’ve only seen dead and stuffed armadillos.

  • Anam Cara

    I gave my brother a stuffed armadillo (taxi­dermy) for his birth­day in 1996 al because of a Prayer for Owen Meany!

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