Thursday, October 8, 2015

Gringos, Grackles, Gators, and Geckos

It's pretty amazing how much "stuff" you see when living on the road.  I've heard it said it is is like living three lifetimes.

I'm sleeping tonight in Shepherdsville, Kentucky.  I'm on my way to Indianapolis.  Lately I've had a lot more variety in my loads - I just finished working my way from Florida over to South Texas. and then I was sent right back to Florida.  Then I cam from there to Delhi, Louisiana, and from there up to Indianapolis.  Then I will dead-head back and find out what is next.

While I was down in San Benito, Texas recently I had to spend the day there because I had driven all through the night to get there on time, which left me having to take a ten hour break there before I could drive anymore.  I took a nice walk in town and found a place to eat lunch.  I walked in and out of a few little stores down there and was, in general, just killing some time.  I also slept some, but as the evening approached and it was getting close to the time I could leave I got out of my truck to take another walk before I started driving,  There was an eery Hitchcock like feel to the evening due to hundreds or maybe thousands of Grackles making their discomfiting noises in the tops of the trees. These birds can make some weird noises and when there is a multitude of them all growling, squawking, whistling, and screeching (which are the best ways I know to describe their vocal antics) it is reminiscent of that first scary viewing I had as a child of that classic Hitchcock film, "The Birds."



I'm not sure why there is such an abundance of these feathered fiends in the southern parts of Texas, but I was warily looking at them in the tops of the trees while walking around uneasily expecting at any moment an ornithological bombardment of unusually uncharacteristic proportions.

I had just left Florida, where I saw my old acquaintance the friendly gator at PGT industries in Nokomis, and here I was in South Texas surrounded in a surreal horror film like setting that was almost inescapable, even within the confines of my truck the noise was disturbingly intrusive.



Also while in Florida I was taking a walk in a particularly shady area where I saw hundreds of little Geckos running about in great bursts of speed like little flashes of lightning darting all over the place - it was an amazing sight, but I couldn't get a picture - they were just moving too fast!

I guess by now you are wondering why I put the word "Gringos" in the title of this little post - I put it there to represent the one thing I did not see while in San Benito.  I probably saw at least two or three hundred people while I was spending the day there, and except for one fellow in the KFC, where I had my lunch, I was the only Gringo I noticed.  I thought I had slipped across the border for a few moments, but I was confused, it was all the other folks who had slipped across the border!  I was in Texas, but it sure didn't feel like Texas!

One more crazy thing I saw this week - I was over in South Carolina as I was going back from Texas to Florida and due to the record flooding over there this week I had to take some back roads to get myself down into Savannah, Georgia where I had a stop to make.  I was cruising along on some little state highway when I noticed an older, but very large and stately home off in the distance to my right, almost like an old plantation style home.  I was looking at it admiringly when in the pastures on the property I start seeing camels!  Yes, I saw some camels just meandering around the pastures of this old property.  That is just weird, no Gringos in a south Texas town, and camels in a South Carolina pasture.  I just don't know what the world is coming to.  Perhaps if we get a new president in the upcoming election year he can figure out how to send the illegals back across the border, and the camels back across the oceans.

One last thing - I spotted this sign over the doors of a restaurant just south of Jackson, Mississippi.


No comments:

Post a Comment