Stay aware of deer, wreaths and pop machines this holiday

Despite gas prices that make you consider a scooter as your primary vehicle, many people will hit the road this weekend for the Memorial Day holiday.

This provides a whole new world of opportunity to encounter things you would never see -- day or night -- if you stayed close to home.

For example, consider vehicle decorations. People are usually very reserved about their cars and trucks. The colors are usually muted, extras are held to a minimum and decorations are reserved for the Christmas tree.

But there are exceptions out there if you keep your eyes open.

While not a common sight, many people adorn the front of their vehicles -- usually a pick-up truck -- with a Christmas wreath. This past spring I witnessed a car still sporting a wreath on the front grill, except the ribbon had been exchanged for a few Easter eggs. Do they receive an award for laziness for not taking it off or for creativity for the new additions?

Giant stickers across the back window is becoming more and more popular. The stickers can proclaim everything from a political affiliation to a favorite rock band. The one type of sticker that confuses me is the window-length sticker proclaiming the brand of vehicle to which it is attached. Is this truly necessary since the auto-makers usually manage to slip the name of the vehicles somewhere on the body of the car at least 17 times?

Then there are those extreme additions to a vehicle. While RVs regularly come equipped with their own air conditioning units, minivans are not regular users of a full-sized, window air conditioner. Yet, that is what one minivan I passed had sticking out its rear window. With that on the exterior, I would have loved to have seen what the family driving the vehicle had done with the interior.

Perhaps you will be driving late into the night to reach your destination.

This opens a whole new world of possibilities.

Since deer are notorious for liking to cross during the middle of the night, I take particular notice of "Deer Crossing" signs as the sun goes down.

I cannot pass a "Deer Crossing" sign without a slight chuckle. I realize that the signs just mark the area where deer are populous and most likely to cross the road. But the following thought never fails to enter my mind: "How do the deer know they are supposed to cross here?" It would make everyone's lives a lot easier if they would just follow the crossing signs, but I've seen some deer wandering across the road -- without a sign in sight -- so there are still a few renegade deer out there.

Personally, I have never hit a deer. Meanwhile, vehicles, such as my mother's cars, must send out a beacon to any nearby deer, calling them into her moving path. She has never felt the need to take up hunting because it is so much simpler to just hop in her car, go for a drive and return with her haul for the day.

I'm often subject to illusions if I'm behind the wheels during the early morning hours, especially when it involves counties which are lax in their mowing habits.

Those tall weeds around mile markers? Those can easily be small animals just waiting in the wings to jump in front of me, making me swerve and waking everyone in the vehicle and who then no longer want to go back to sleep -- the worst possible scenario from the situation.

Not until you are driving at 2 a.m. in the middle of nowhere do you fully comprehend the reason behind those freestanding pop machines. With 24-hour convenience stores, we've grown accustomed to buying something to drink in the wee hours of the morning.

But not every town has a gas station which is open all night, so those pop machines can be a last resort for someone needing a jolt of caffeine to keep them awake.

As I drove down a desolate stretch of road last summer, those lone pop machines began to serve an ulterior purpose: As a beacon of civilization.

The light radiating from the front of the pop machine can serve as a reminder that people do actually live in this particular place of the country and that you haven't wandered out into no-man's-land -- completely.

-- Ronda Graff has access to a scooter as a mode of transportation, but doesn't know the road regulations about attaching five little carts behind for her kids.