Saving a life!

I just hate it when things make my heart go THUMP!

Coming back from town the other day

minding my own darn business,

something in the road caught my eye.

Well on a 4 lane hwy you don't have much time to think!

I saw movement ON the road!

I can't swerve or I will wreck, and maybe take out another vehicle!

I can't slam on my breaks cause I am going to fast....

So I SHUT MY EYES!

My car straddles a TURTLE crossing the freeway!

When it dawns on me what just happened, 

quickly I look all around, and flip a U-EE in the middle of the freeway!
(Kind of like you see the cops do chasing bad guys.)

I go back and the poor turtle is now on the white line dividing two lanes,

cars and trucks zipping past!

He is getting quite a breeze as tires are inches from his head! 

He half turns, almost gets hit, 

I'm waving like a maniac!

I rush and whisk him off the roadway!

I take him across the road, but then I look around, and gee, there really is no place for him to go there.

So I go back to the center turning lane where my car is parked!

Put him in the car with me, and head home.

He won't stay in the seat of course, and so I am holding this turtle with my 

right hand, and driving with my left!

Now that his life is saved, he feels pretty frisky, and his feet are going in the motion like he is swimming.

He has very long toe nails, and as I am holding him in the air

(similar to the photo below)

His toes nails are scraping my fingers. (Ouch! Ouch!)

So I pull over again, and I have a box in the car I keep extra things in. I Dump it out, and there! 

He can't go anywhere.

I head home!

"WHAT THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO WITH A TURTLE!"

A Light Bulb!

I will take it to my dear and trusted friend who lives down the road from me, and has a big marshy pond next to her pasture!
(I always call her for advice on everything!)

YEP! That is the answer!

So this is where we are...She was kind enough to take these pictures for me

as in all the commotion, I forgot to grab my camera!

Here I let him go.....

Here we think he is going to get hung up.

But he puts it in reverse and kicks in the 4-wheel drive and off he goes!

He is quite agile, and moves pretty darn quick for a turtle

that has the history of moving slow!

Once he figured out he was free, and safe, he made a be line for the waters edge!

It was really weird, because a couple weeks ago in about the same area of the freeway,
there WAS a turtle that was smashed in the road, and I really felt to awful!

Then I find this one, making his way to find his lost friend????

As far as I know, we do not have a migration of turtles in this area!
If so, then this is the first one, and I better not come across anymore
making suicidal attempts at crossing a 4 lane busy freeway!

My heart, and my friends pond could not take it!