Our drive back from Aspen to Montana involved some crazy roads through northwest Colorado into the wasteland of Wyoming. At one point, we were driving miles and miles on gravel, wondering if this was the right way.
Notice the complete lack of… anything. This dusty gravel road stretched to the horizon, in the midst of sagebrush and a few lonely cattle. No houses, no gas stations, not even other cars. It was kind of eerie, but also kind of cool.
When we finally reached pavement again, there were thousands– maybe millions?– of little dark specks all over the highway.
This went on for mile after mile. I thought they were perhaps leaves or something that had blown from the surrounding plains, but we could see them moving on the road. We stopped in the middle of the highway (hey, there weren’t any other cars) to take a look.
Grasshoppers. By the thousands. Many were squished from the occasional car, and the others were kind of feebly crawling around (not hopping, strangely enough). I don’t know if it was a migration of some sort, or if a plague is descending on southwest Wyoming…