Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Another One for the Hits & Near Misses List

On my ride to work this morning at 0:dark:30, two playful foxes (no, the 4-legged variety) thought it would be great fun to dash in front of my bike, which happened to be banked fairly hard right at the time. Fortunately, there was no meeting of rubber and fur, and all three of us continued on our merry ways. As it was my first up-close encounter with fox while on a motorcycle, it got me thinking about updating my list of things I've either hit or nearly so, which I posted back in November 2006. Close encounters with automobiles aren't included; too many of those to count as my fellow motorcycle commuters know all too well. New stuff is in red.

Bullseyed:
  • 1 each (amazingly only one) squirrel; he must've been real old 'n' slow
  • a smallish bat that kamikazed into my left hand on I-95
  • 2 nails (only nails punctured tires count here)
  • a brake caliper slider pin that some kid down the street lost during a curb-side brake job; guess whose rear tire found it?
Missed:
  • many deer (including a few dead ones)
  • a large turtle, and another one
  • 2 or 3 snakes
  • thousands of squirrels
  • a few dozen chipmunks
  • a few 'possums
  • the occasional turkey buzzard
  • a few dogs
  • very few cats (they're smarter than dogs)
  • a few dozen pedestrians (largely jay-walking college students)
  • 1 young bovine on the loose
  • a couple of ill-placed orange warning cones
  • a construction barrel blowing around in the wind
  • a large plastic kiddie-pool blown by the wind
  • various trash cans and bags of garbage blowing around in the wind
  • 1 water-cooler that flew out of the back of a tradesman's truck
  • the odd piece of lumber
  • dozens of beer bottles
  • lot o' squashed-flat waxed cups (ice has more traction) and soda cans
  • a few Amish buggies
  • a roof from a recently-collapsed small barn (!)
  • 2 foxes
Please share your own list or a few of your weirdest hits 'n' misses by clicking on "Comments" below.

2 Comments:

Blogger Joe said...

I nearly hit a six foot wooden ladder on I-10 coming out of New Orleans.

September 27, 2007 at 11:25:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Doug Just Doug said...

Yowza! :-0 I don't know why, but stuff seems to fly out of contractor's trucks with alarming regularity. Don't they want to keep their stuff? Coincidently, a day or two after my post I was on my way to work (in the dark) and came upon an orange traffic cone that was in the middle of my lane for no apparent reason. A minute later I stopped behind a pickup at a red light that had a stack of traffic cones in the bed...minus one would be my guess.

September 27, 2007 at 11:42:00 AM EDT  

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