Traffic jam

This morning on my walk I saw a box turtle, a pair of indigo buntings, a red-tailed hawk, and an array of spangled fritillaries, but I didn't see another human being or a car for the first five miles, and then suddenly I found myself in the middle of a traffic jam--or what passes for a traffic jam out here in the middle of nowhere.

I was walking across a barely-two-lanes-wide bridge accompanied by my dog and the neighbor's lab pup, whom we call "Goofy" because he walks with a distinctively Disneyesque lope, sort of like a teen boy who has just gone through a growth spurt and doesn't quite know what to do with those lanky arms and legs. We were halfway across the bridge when two cars approached, one from each direction, and I suddenly realized that the bridge was not big enough for the five of us. What could I do? I had nowhere to go unless I jumped off the bridge--a 10-foot drop to a creek carrying about six inches of water. Not an attractive option.

I controlled my dog, but Goofy doesn't recognize my authority so he was running around playfully while these two cars crept carefully past. Somehow we all got across and my dog got a treat for being good, and Goofy went on being goofy. He's just a kid. One of these days he'll figure out that cars are not puppy toys. I just hope he doesn't have to learn that lesson the hard way.