Aunt Beulah's Road-kill Overcoat

Living in Vernal—especially the last couple of days—has really been bringing out the fashion designer in me. Or maybe it's just bringing out the redneck in me.

Monday, day-before-yesterday, I went for a long, long drive. I had to take Jason back to Snow College after the Thanksgiving holiday—which was lovely, by the way (Thanksgiving was lovely; the drive was a little tedious). The trip to Ephraim is a three-and-a-half-hour drive through the desert, canyons, and general wilderness of Utah. In fact, to get almost anywhere from Vernal, you have to take a three-hour drive through the desert, canyons, and general wilderness of Utah. And whenever you take this excursion you are sure to see a lot of road kill. This used to really gross me out; now it only bothers me a lot if it's a skunk, or a scrambled deer. Or if it's a gory mess in the middle of the road where I am forced to look at it; that can be a little disturbing. Ew.

But lately—well, at least on Monday—maybe due to extreme tiredness, I kept seeing these dead critters—not the squished-to-a-pulp ones, but the ones lying on their backs with their feet up looking like cartoon animals playing dead... 

Anyway, I kept seeing these dead animals on the side of the road (mostly raccoons) and I would think, "I wonder if their fur is soft..." or, "I wonder what you could make of that fur..." or, "Too bad I can't just pick them up and take them to someone to skin and prepare the fur so I could use it for..." (Like I'd actually want to pick a dead animal up off of the road—and then drive home with it in my car! Eew!) At one point I even saw a dead pheasant and thought that the feathers would look great on a purse or something.

So, yeah. Weird. But maybe you should watch out for my new Fall 2018 "Road-Kill" line, just in case...