A memory of migratory elephants

Returning today from a dental appointment at a community health center 35 miles south, I found myself driving in a convoy of elephants. I did briefly wonder if the dentist had changed up the chemical cocktail in the injection he gave me before doing his dastardly drilling. I clearly remembered telling him, as he approached with a syringe, that I needed to drive after the appointment.

I wasn’t hallucinating and risked distracted driving photography (again) at 75 mph on the Interstate to prove it. There were at least four, maybe even five trucks and flatbed trailers carrying this very real, very near life sized pachyderm parade.

The vehicles, from their plates, seemed to be registered in Chihauhaua, a neighboring state of Mexico. It is not unusual to see Mexican vehicles on the roads where I live. Chihauhaua is closer than Colorado.

From afar, the herd of elephants looked like wood carvings, but close up they seemed to be molded from some kind of more plastic material - maybe fiberglass. About 75% were adult sized, the rest juveniles tucked rather protectively in at the ends of each trailer.

Just another morning in the enchanted northern Chihauhauan desert where each day offers some kind of extraordinary magic, yet the extraordinary never becomes everyday.