Surreal moments encountered on the road

There I was, on the road between New Richland and Ellendale, on a moonless night. Knowing some locals who refer to the road as “Venison Alley,” I was being particularly watchful. After all, as farmers harvest their crops, deer have to readjust their habits to the decreasing amount of cover where they can conceal themselves. As the corn disappears, it must seem to them the area goes from being about 80 percent to roughly 5 percent “forest.”

Anyway, there I was, watching the road closely, when a legless, brown creature maybe two feet tall began to dance in my headlight beam. It twisted and spun, then performed an effortless flip and disappeared into the darkness.

 

I was still staring ahead in confusion when I realized what I had just seen. On that particularly windy night, a dried corn leaf had been caught by the moving air and carried into the road. Puppet-like, it followed some invisible instructions before escaping to the roadside.

 

I saw another lengthy brown leaf behave in about the same way a couple days later. It caused me to speculate why these particular blowing leaves seemed so noticeable; I quickly realized the largest single thing is that the leaves were alone–that is, rather than being part of a flurry of leaves, they were the only ones moving at the time. That is why they seemed to be moving of their own volition–because we “see” the wind based on its effects. With only one unusually long leaf caught up in the movement, I saw the leaf without immediately recognizing the power behind it.

 

It was a glorious fraction of a second, though, thinking I had discovered some bizarre new creature…

 

Another experience that brought a smile to my face occurred in broad daylight. I topped a hill and quickly realized I would have to pull off the road.

 

Ahead of me, extending past the edge of the road on both sides, were two combines traveling in my direction. Though there were only two of them, and though there was considerable space between them, they sent an impression of being a convoy. I have great respect for farmers and for the pressure they are under during harvest, so I felt no resentment as I turned off on a convenient side road and waited for the two behemoths to pass.

 

For the three or four minutes I watched them, I recognized that pulling over was the right choice–the drop-off at each side of the road was a bit too steep or rough for us to have attempted sharing the road. Given the relative size of my vehicle to theirs, it was obvious who would have been the loser.

 

The driver of the first combine waved energetically as he passed–I took that as a signal of appreciation that I had chosen not to complicate their drive.