Member-only story
Human kindness
People Are Good
Three human strangers helping a dog along the I-15 in California remind me.
Our 5,500-mile road trip was coming to an end. We were about ten minutes east of Barstow, CA driving on Interstate 15, with only about 90 minutes left until we arrived home after two and a half weeks on the road.
I saw something on the side of the highway and before I knew it I was passing a dog seated right along fast-going traffic.
I put on the breaks and pulled over, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see if my action had affected the dog. In this moment I realized the dog was waiting for their companion, who had been killed and was in the middle lane of the highway.
Flashback to February of 2004, just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
My then boyfriend (now husband) and I were returning to Denver from our first road trip. A small creature crossed the highway ahead of us. A bear cub? As we got closer I realized this was a dog a pulled over.
The dog was a puppy (ended up he was eight weeks old), and bolted as soon as I approached him. It took 45 minutes to catch him, running through mud and snow, ducking under tree branches.
