A few years back I was needing time to recharge, and to get away from work. I was itching to go on a nice long road-trip; my last one was around 10 years prior. My brother, a friend and I went on a 5000 mile trip to the southwestern US, up to Montana, through the upper Midwest and back to Mississippi where I lived at the time. It was a 2 week adventure, and we really enjoyed it; We saw places that we’d dreamed of seeing our whole lives (we were still young then). It was a great time, and I dreamed of recapturing that, but nowadays it’s almost impossible to get people together to take on such a trip. Deciding that I would do it alone, I scheduled a week off of work. Since I only had a week to travel, the trip would have to be a shorter one. In classic Charles Guthrie form, I packed my clothes into my truck the night before, set my alarm clock for 5 am, and jumped into bed. While lying there in my bed, I settled on a destination – the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The Backroads Were Great

I traveled the backroads at different points throughout the trip to take it slow and reflect. I found that staying off of the Interstate Highways was much more relaxing and stress free. At some point in South Dakota I took off driving on a two lane prairie road. It was so… vast and empty.

Along those roads there were short driveways leading to immense grasslands every half mile it seemed. No homes or buildings just open prairie land. I made several short stops to take breaks from driving, soak up the prairie sun, sit with my prairie thoughts, and take deep breathes of, you guessed it, prairie winds.

On my last mini stop, I sat on my tailgate staring across the road to another small gravel driveway and a gate to some vast pasture in front of me. There on the gate was a small white sign with some unreadable text and graphics on it. “Wait… that graphic is kind of shaped like a prairie dog.” I thought. After sitting there a while, it was time to be heading on down the road.

As I was about to get into my truck, I glanced at the gate in front of me. Another sign, like the one across the road, only this one was in great condition. “Ha! It IS a prairie dog. What does this say?” I thought.

The Sign Read

On the sign was written something to the effect…

CAUTION! PRAIRIE DOGS HAVE PLAGUE – ENTERING PLAGUE AREA – KEEP PEOPLE AND PETS IN VEHICLES…blah blah blah…AVOID RODENTS…blah blah blah…DEATH…blah blah blah…GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE…blah blah…

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the rest of it said, as I was driving away at a rapid speed; nor could I see it through the massive dust cloud shooting out from my spinning tires.

Finale

What can we learn from this story? Well, I never caught the black death from the death winds of the prairie dogs of death. I tried to calm down by telling myself that it was some rancher’s brilliant idea to prevent trespassing, cattle rustling and other generally cowboy-type hooliganism.

When I got to a place where I could read about it online, I discovered that it was true, but by then I was far away from the infected area; safe at last from the prairie dogs of death.