Deer Tales (An Aside)

Dear Diary,

Do you remember the old Laugh-In series on television? Do you remember the visual of Artie Johnson on the tiny trike, pedaling along in some weird get-up? Pedaling, pedaling, pedaling, going no-where slowly and then hitting something and just falling off to one side?

I swear this was the (unintentional) deer avoidance technique that Scarlett was employing the first few days of our journey.

Now in her defense she is a city girl. And, not just any kind of city girl either. She is a real "Jersey girl" city girl. A wildlife whisperer she is not. But what she lacks in the understanding of wild animal behaviors she more than makes up for with home grown city moxy.

It was just that it took a while for the moxy to take over.

During the initial leg of our journey, while riding through Illinois and then again in Wisconsin, she would become a small speck in my rear view mirror about every 5 or 6 miles or so. Then all of a sudden she would be 2 seconds behind me on my right side again.

It took me a while to figure out that I would lose her to the horizon when we would pass the yellow deer crossing signs along the roadways.

When we arrived in Steven's Point, Wisconsin prior to meeting up with Bev on her trike, Scarlett and I decided to take a nice sightseeing ride in and around the area with Scarlett in the lead. However, when we asked about our chosen route we were told that there was an area of it where deer were prevalent. Well...poor Scarlett began the "finding the moxy" process and off we went. When we pulled off the Main roadway to begin our cruise through the woods she looked a bit tenuous so I pulled up next to her and offered some support. "You'll do fine....you can just go slowly...even 15 to 20 MPH if you have to"

Well, Diary, I don't know if you have ever ridden a 1200 Sporty but their engine stroke, like most Harleys, is fairly long and the cause of the Harley rattle. Watching me going 15 to 20 MPH on my sporty looks like watching an odd hurky-jerky routine. It really is nearly impossible to do with out using the friction zone on my clutch and a high rev on the throttle. Not the way to travel 25 or 30 miles down country lanes. (and, yes, I do need a tune-up!)

So while I struggled to keep my over heating sporty from convulsing into a stall, Scarlett was busy scanning left and right for the 'wascally deewr' that she seemed to think had all been notified of her arrival. I had visions of them all huddled together snickering hard and uncontrollably with one hoof over their muzzles and the other hoof holding themselves so they wouldn't pee. The smallest one crouched by the side of the road as a scout, yelling back for the rest to be quieter. Then, all of a sudden they spy her and as she rides slowly by they all jump out with signs that say "BOO" and she falls over in front of them...not unlike Artie Johnson on the afore mentioned TV show.

AHhhhh Diary....I still laugh out loud thinking of that ride.....the nice thing is that Scarlett laughs with me too. She laughs too because, true to form, she dug deep and came up with a big old reserve of moxy. Enough to conquer the fear of encountering not only deer, but moose as well. From that ride on if I lost her to the horizon I knew it was not because of deer or moose signs.

And for all her trepidation and ALL the 100 to 200 (maybe even more) animal warning signs we only ever saw one deer in 3000 miles. Lucky?...Does a bear...?....well, you know the rest.

G'-Night Diary
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