Iron Fist

I have always been one of those people who would get disappointed when on a trip and not getting what was promised to me by a roadside sign. ‘CURVES AHEAD’ usually delivered, but ‘Now Entering SNOW ZONE’ almost never did (a hazard of driving over mountains in July, I suppose). ‘DANGER: FALLING ROCKS’ has yet to yield a cascade of falling stones all across the highway, and ‘BRAZILIAN HOT WAX’ has — well, that’s another story, really.

THE POINT IS: when I got back on the 101, heading south for Humboldt Bay as the day escaped me, I passed a sign that said ‘ELK CROSSING AHEAD NEXT 2 MILES’, and I didn’t even bother to gear myself up for disappointment. “Pfeh,” I said, “elk,” and then a minute or two later I found myself saying, “Holy shit! ELK!”

Just right there. Just that close. Eating on the side of the road by a traffic sign. I pulled my car over to the shoulder to stop and stare, mouth hanging open in awe like - well, like a tourist, I guess. They were just THERE, suddenly, grazing along the side of the road, mostly oblivious to us but every now and then looking up at we humans as if to say, “Hey, buddy, what’s the big deal? You ain’t got nothin’ else to do?”

After several minutes of internal debate which concluded with me deciding that trying to pet one and make it my friend was probably a bad idea, if only because my hotel probably wouldn’t be very understanding about the last minute addition of a roommate, I got back on the freeway and kept heading south, only to discover that the original sign had OVERdelivered, and there were elk beyond just the two miles that they’d promised. As I neared Humboldt Lagoon, squinting into the setting sun, I came around a curve and saw that there were a number of cars pulled over onto the shoulder. Just on the hunch that this might mean more elk, I pulled over along with them, and got out of my car to look at the herd of Roosevelt elk grazing in a field next to the road.

There were easily fifty elk, spread out over the entire field. Not many bothered to look at us this time. No doubt they’d given up wondering why it was that we rushed back and forth along that road all the time, only occasionally stopping to marvel at the beautiful land they spent their every day in.