running and roadkill

I'm back in MI and ran this AM along a fairly busy road that connects a couple of towns.  And I forgot about the choice smells that are part of country roads, i.e. road kill that is beginning to get nice and ripe.  Ran by a couple that really got my attention:  one was a skunk and the other was a raccoon.  The skunk of course, smelled like skunk, and the raccoon just smelled like dead stuff that wants to make you gag.

Naturally, your first inclination is to hold your breath, but when I'm running, I'm pretty much counting on getting as much oxygen into my system as possible - and that means having to breathe at a regular rate.  I could walk instead of run, but then of course it would take me longer to get past the sucky smell - so I keep running - and try not to breathe - much.

Today the skunk came first and I could smell it before I saw it, so I was a little bit prepared and started taking short breaths and holding it for a bit before exhaling and "sipping" a little bit of air at a time.  The funny thing about skunk stink is that you can smell it without breathing - which is really aggravating. I'm dying to take a fresh breath, but I know that if I do I'm going to suck in "skunk stink" - and eventually (not too long actually - its a matter of seconds) I have to take a breath and make it a short one - and of course its not close to being enough air to satisfy my oxygen depleted lungs.  And eventually, after what seems like an eternity, I am past the skunk and the stink.... phew...

About a half mile later I came across the dead, and nicely ripe, raccoon.  He probably got hit the night before and now with the sun beating on it was becoming nice and smelly.  The problem though was that, unlike the skunk stink that I sort of eased into, I suddenly saw the raccoon, guts and all, and was overwhelmed by the ripe smell of opened gastro-intestinal fumes.  It's one of those smells that almost immediately make you gag and want to hurl. It's like hitting a wall of bad, bad pungentness, the likes of which you can't imagine was once a living creature.

And of course I had just exhaled and was taking a deep breath when I got to the raccoon - a double whammy.  And yes, I did hold my breath for as long as I could before taking as small a breath as possible to test the air.  Obviously I got through it and lived to write about it.

But this just goes along with the joys of living on the edge of the country along with all the creatures that live there.