Day 12 The Cow Crash

A gaggle- convoy? herd, I guess- of cattle trucks passed us and in a few minutes one had careened over the oncoming lanes and rolled into a depression off the side of the road. We came upon the accident before the dust settled. The driver escaped unharmed; his dog howled and whined, pinned in the cab. But the 63 cows? Not good. I helped a fellow get the back door opened and he instructed me and another fellow to distract and dissuade the cows from going onto the highway. 

I am not a cowboy. I have watched bull riding though, so I figured I'd just wave my arms and yell, "Go that way, Mr. cow!"

Now if I was a cow. And I just got thrown sideways and am now standing on the side of the trailer with the roof at my back, and I got out of that thing only to be greeted by a guy wearing a leather jacket, I would have head butted him into the next pasture!

However, my unlucky friend (who looked more like a cowboy than a biker) got a good shot from Mr. Cow and down the hill he went! 

We helped a few more cows exit with no more damge to us. At the front of the trailer, a half dozen cows got out, but others didn't look good. More were bellowing inside, but not as many as one would expect. One cow ran down the side of the road along the guardrail and flashed (as much as a cow can flash) right past Quilter Girl.

Another driver told me that the cows shifted and threw the trailer sideways. Wow. Who would have thought?

By now the firemen showed up and manged to get the dog out of the cab. How the driver survived is nothing short of a miracle. However, I not sure he felt that way. He's probably an independent and out of business. I clicked off another picture (macbre, I know, but YOU'RE looking at them!) and a cop told me to stop, as it was a crime scene. 

I'm not a quick, smart alecky answer guy, so it took me fifteen minutes or so to think of what to say.

"A crime scene? So which cows are getting arrested?"

It was a cautionary tale, and I'm happy we didn't see that truck coming into our lane from the other way. A bad day for the driver, not too good of a day for the dog, and a really bad day for many of the cows.