On the Road Again

I was just trying to eat my lunch.

It had been a six hour drive to the meeting place, where I had handed off an animal to the keepers from another zoo.  From there, they would be driving six hours back to their own zoo and helping the new arrival settle in.  With the exception of a single gas stop, I'd driven nonstop for all six hours.  I'd kept the AC cranked up to a degree that I'd found uncomfortable to help keep the crated animal in the back comfortable, and had turned the radio on down low to provide some white noise, but I could barely hear it.

Now, as I turned the van around, I was on the road again.  Time for a bathroom break, to roll the window down, and to crank up the tunes.  Most importantly though, I wanted lunch.

This being in the earlier days of COVID, I was leery about going into a restaurant and eating there, even if the restaurant was allowing inside dining.  Instead, I got some carry out, drove until I found a nice looking park, and pulled into the shade.  Then, I reclined back in my seat and began to stuff myself.  

Three seconds later, I turned and glanced out the window.  The noses of two children were smooshed against the driver-side window.  Another two were on the passenger side.  A fifth was nosing around the back windshield.  As far as I could tell, none of them actually saw me through the tinted windows.  Fair enough.  I wasn't what they were looking for.

I sighed.  It's hard to be inconspicuous when you're driving a lime-green billboard.

Neither of these (Sacramento Zoo above, Northeast Wisconsin Zoo below) were my Zoomobile, but they do give you a pretty good idea of what the typical one looks like.

As I had on many animal transports before, I was driving a Zoomobile - the educational vehicles that zoo educators use for taking animals to schools and other public events.  And, like most Zoomobiles, this one was far from inconspicuous.  It was blindingly bright in color, an electric green (others I've driven have been bright yellow, or blue, or road-cone orange).  The color was kind of a moot point, though, because you could barely see it beneath the giant animal imagery plastered all over it from bumper to bumper.  In case anyone missed the point, the word "ZOO" was helpfully scrawled across it in several locations.

Whenever I stopped for gas on a trip, or pulled over for food, I was usually swarmed with people who wanted to see what kind of animal I had inside.  Often, the answer was "none" - when I'm transporting animals, I try not to stop on the leg of the trip when I have them in the car, trying to break only when I'm by myself, if possible.  They never seem to believe me.  It's like they're convinced that, if they only ask five or six more times, I'll relent and let them play with the pink pygmy panda or whatever it is they are convinced is in the trunk.  When driving down the highway, I've had cars speed up to ride alongside me, swerving disconcertingly close as they try to divine the mystery of what it is I'm doing.  The answer is usually... just driving.  And trying not to crash.

I often find myself wishing that the Zoomobile had a stealth mode, where you could flip a switch and it would just be a drab gray van that people would let pass unnoticed.  It would certainly take some of the pressure of driving.  Still, advertising pays, and the Zoomobile is designed to get attention.  It's very good at it.  Especially when you don't want any.