Odd things you see by the road

[fixedgeargirl]

And wish you could take home.

The first thing I had to pass up on Friday's ride was a nice roll of wire screen, all bound up with tape, about 2.5 feet long. It would have been handy for screening garden soil, but would have torn the bejesus out of my lycra.

About 10 miles later I had to ride right by a perfectly good hard hat in the ditch! Not that I need a hard hat, exactly , but my 6 year old would love it . And there would just be something so novel about having a hard hat that I found by the road, ya know? I actually contemplated ways to carry it for a few minutes !

What have you left (or not) by the wayside?

[Pax]

I'm always curious when I see a single shoe by the side of the road. Wouldn't you notice if you were only wearing a single shoe? How does one manage (other than an awful accident) to lose their shoe as they are going down the road??

[Brandi]

well the road I ride on as some very interesting items on it. Not to be gross but there ends up being a lot of animal parts. Mainly because there are a lot of preditors. Hawks, fox, cayote, parargin falcons.
There is also someone who drinks Canadian mist whisky, cause there are at least half a dozen thrown out on te side of the road. small pocket size bottles. Lots of beer cans. Hope I am never on that road when these people who have been drining decide to go drive while I am on the road. I have seen many couches, old tv's. But the best was when i found a perfectly good bike light.
I know this sounds like a trashed area but it's not. The couches and what not get picked up within a day or so. It tends to be a road the teenagers go to at night to make out and drink, found evidence of safe sex(yuck). And I have a story for the candian mist person. They drink it before they get home and throw it out the window (which is really uncool) because he's wife or her husband would get mad if they were drinking. There is more to my made up story but I have already talked to much.

[RoadRaven]

LOL Queen... the single childs shoe in the middle of a road always makes me smile... I can just see toddler, strapped in the back and not having a good day cause they want out grabbing whatever they can and chucking it... and often a shoe is all they can reach when in their car seat...

I've seen a set of drawers... a coffe table... a good looking mattress... some very nice baseball caps...

How do these things just appear and then not be missed???

One of the mysteries of the world...

[maillotpois]

An entire pizza, still in the box, but with the box slightly open so you could see inside. I wasn't THAT hungry....

[Trek420]

stuffed purple mermaid doll who sometimes rides on my helmet

an IWFL football (womens pro tackle football league)

and who can forget the "Tar Baby Rat Fetus"

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...ighlight=fetus

sorry for the confusion I am causing by editing above what is mentioned below me ;-)

[Nanci]

Recently, a very nice square that I am still kicking myself for not picking up, and a gun. And then there was the Tar Baby Rat Fetus, which I would link to the story of, but don't know how. But if you just search that phrase, you can find the story...

Nanci

[CyclaSutra]

Things I picked up:

Last year, a working bike pump that apparently fell off during someone's commute.

At the Zion century last month: a string of ruby red glass beads, probably a bracelet.

Things I've left:

dead bunny, lots of cans, badminton racquet, NAILS, the NAILS, Clif Bar wrappers, dirty diapers , car parts, a sock, a shoe, a perfectly good-looking sweater...

[Googlie Wooglie]

I recently rode past a vintage Schwinn ten speed ... my size and everything, with those cool old-style bars .... with a free sign on it. Not the best shape but a wonderful project. I rode home as fast as I could, grabbed the dog, hopped in the truck, raced back up the hill ... but it was gone.

At least the dog enjoyed the ride.

[withm]

I was just thinking about this yesterday. I rode down a dead end street to look at the bay, a street I've ridden on probably 100 times. I noticed a cross street named "Cookie Lane." Of course that had me thinking about cookies for the next 10 miles but even weirder, was why had I never noticed it before?

I started the ride with a warm up loop around my development - just a 1/2 mile loop. At the back half I saw 6 deer in someone's front yard. They started to run back to the woods, but maybe they never saw a cyclist before, cause halfway there, a couple of them stopped, and turned to look at me - just to stare. I had to laugh. Now it is not uncommon to see deer around the neighborhood at dusk in the wintertime when no one is out and about, but yesterday was 66o, sunny, and lots of people and cars around and it was 2pm. Very odd indeed.

Martha

[carback]

Grizzly bear. (not that I want to take it home, thank you very much)

Actually, I almost rode right into him. I was in a head-down, horse to the barn door mode, came around a tight corner, and lo & behold, he was just finishing crossing the road.

I came to an immediate stop and let him continue on his merry way. He gave me a look, realized I was no threat (thankfully) and walked off.

Took me about 10 minutes to stop my legs from shaking.

Very cool.

[newfsmith]

Lot's of roadkill: a Luna moth; 2 saw-whet owls; a least weasel; many possums; many skunks; many,many squirrels (both red & grey); a few raccoon; tons of chipmunks; and starting with the next rain storm I will be seeing 5 to 10 yellow spotted salamanders that didn't make it across the road the night before.

Other things I have found; the cash drawer of a convenience store that had been robbed the night before (it wasn't fun waiting for the cops to come on a 5F morning with a brisk wind; 2 wrenchs; and more beer cans than I care to think of. Also trash that people discarded in the woods, carpet underlayment, an old TV, but the strangest were the 3 gas tanks.

[annie]

Oddest thing I ever saw --- on a group ride last fall, we all passed the same "things" on the side of the road while climbing a hill. NO one was quite sure what they were, so on the way home, we re-traced our route to do a closer look-see. Everyone made their guess as to what "it" was. We all knew they were dead somethings - but what? I guessed a monkey (ok - stupid guess for Wisconsin, but it LOOKED like one!) Others guessed a dog, cat, calf, fox. So we get to the spot and we all stop and pull off the road for a closer look. So sad. In looking closer, we discovered a road-kill doe and five unborn fetuses that must have been expelled when she was hit. They were much too small to have been fawns. That's why they were so difficult to identify, until we stopped and looked closely.

On a lighter note, I think what I see most, discarded, or lost, along the road are bungie cords!! Most of them are broken, but I've found some good ones and brought them home and used them. I've also found ski gloves, which I attempted to return to the owner by putting them in the "Lost and Found" ads in our local newspaper. (No one called.) I see a disgusting amount of cigarettes and cig butts by the side of the road.

Plenty of roadkill, too, especially racoons, skunks, and possums, mostly in the spring and fall, but all through the year. I try and NOT look TOO closely at any dead thing during the summer - ick! I try and hold my breathe as I pass it, too. You never know what might fly in an open mouth and where it might have landed previously!

annie

[Eden]

On a lighter note, I think what I see most, discarded, or lost, along the road are bungie cords!! Most of them are broken, but I've found some good ones and brought them home and used them. annie

HAH! my husband and I have sometimes wondered if you could start a second hand bungie business with all of the bungies along the road.

My most memorable finds $10, a Spanish (I think) Pro Team water bottle from a race that passed right on the route my husband and I were touring on - we had no idea that a race would be going through there! and some poor guys wallet. I found it and contacted him before he even knew it had been stolen. Some schmo had picked his pocket at a local drug store, took all of the cash and tossed the wallet out of their car right into the bike lane. He'd just moved here too so there were no local numbers or addresses in there. I ended up finding a phone# in the wallet that turned out to be his daughters boyfriend who contacted him. They were still at the drugstore, so I went down and gave it back. They were a really sweet old couple - it was very shoddy to steal from them right before Christmas.

[nicolezoie]

The oddest sight of them all for me was several weeks back during the Buick Open at the Torrey Pines golf course. That's in La Jolla, I was in Oceanside - about 30 miles NORTH. I was riding along the San Luis River Trail and saw an OutBack Steakhouse blimp flying overhead. It was an EXTREMELY windy day that day, and the blimp looked like it was trying to make a landing at the Oceanside Municipal Airport, which is right next to the river trail. Anyhow, it caught my eye because this blimp was flying at a 30 degree angle DOWNwards, making sweeps back and forth above the runway. As I was pedaling like mad to get the hell out from underneath the path of descent, it came really close to hitting some of the smaller hangers at the airport. I don't know what happened once I rode away from there. *shudder*

The same day, I saw Herbie parked on top of a car carrier. Behind Herbie was a really poorly done Batmobile.