The Bovine Comedy: Run, Elsie, Run!

It was a cool 37-degree morning when the long 800-mile drive down to Southern California began.  With low clouds. Perfect weather conditions for driving, I thought to myself, unlike the atrocious summer experience the last time around.

Of course, I knew that warmer temperatures awaited me on the other side of the mountains.

A road trip offers many lessons on life.  Travel helps me know more about what lies on the other side of any metaphorical and literal mountain.  I am, after all, continuing with the same curiosity to understand that world that propelled our human ancestors to venture out of the African Savanna.

I had no idea, however, that one lesson would be presented as an improvisational comedy.

A couple of hours past the summit, while driving on a much warmer 76-degree flatland on the other side,I thought I saw a cop car's flashing light on the right shoulder a few cars ahead of me.  A minute later, a flashing cop car on the left shoulder.  I wondered whether this meant that soon we would all come to a halt--I remembered an experience from a few years ago when a cop car ahead of me all of a sudden switched his siren on and started zigzagging across the lanes forcing us to slow down and eventually stop.

This time, too, we slowed down. And we stopped.

Curiosity being my middle name, I stepped out of the car.  No visible clues.

But, there had to be something--the traffic not only on our side was stopped but in the other direction too.

And then the reason made its appearance:

A cow on the loose.  And, what appeared to be a ranch-hand running towards it.

A hilarious sight, indeed. A cow managed to closed down an important north-south commercial artery!

Meanwhile, it was quite a sight to look at the long line of vehicles behind me.  I wondered whether the people in those vehicles had any idea at all about the unfolding bovine comedy.

And then for the final scene in the comedy, when the patrol officer managed to direct the cow towards the waiting ranch-hand:

Soon, life resumed.  We were back to speeding towards whatever we were speeding towards.  It was time for dinner.  I stopped at a California fast-food favorite of mine.  I felt terribly guilty thinking that it might be only a matter of time before the cow that stopped the traffic also became food for humans.

I hoped against hope that the cow made its great escape.

But then most comedies are nothing but tragedies presented as farce.  Such is life.