blog 68

We hit a lot of traffic driving to New Jersey. Holiday traffic is always stop and go, which gets really tiring after hours on end. Also, semi’s don’t seem to understand the fact that they cannot drive side by side and slow down miles of traffic behind them. However irritating this was, my dad, brother and I did get to see some cool stuff. My father pointed out Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania (we drove over the bridge). The little island has a giant previously nuclear power plant sitting on top of it. Years ago this power plant was in danger of blowing up and gave America a pretty huge scare (I’m sure we’ve all read about it in history by now). We also got to see all of the mountain scenery, especially in West Virginia. Giant red, black, and grey jagged rocks towered over the car and led up into a forest atop the mountain. I noticed that the deer painted on the deer signs in West Virginia are much bigger than in all of the other states! That’s because the deer there really are a lot bigger. So that was really cool, but then we saw something even crazier. There was a dead mountain lion sitting on the side of the road. Traffic was so slow we got to inch past it and get a good look. The thing was just a huge hairy beast with black markings on its face, huge paws, and a long thick tail. As an animal lover, I felt really bad seeing it lying there on the side of the road. I felt like such a powerful majestic creature should be laid to rest in the woods in its own habitat. It didn’t look like it had been hit by a car, more likely shot by a hunter. Anyway, my dad obviously refused to let me go touch it, so that was that. It was a really intense thing to see though.