Wienermobile, Batman, and Hersey Kisses

I admit it. I am an absolute, unabashed, knock me over with a feather, sucker for vehicles that look like something other than a vehicle. If I am driving down the road and happen to see one coming from the other direction, I almost cause a wreck from the excitement. Thursday was a great example.

The talk show on the radio was a mild distraction for me when I was driving home from work. I usually have the radio on just to keep myself from getting overly concerned about traffic. It takes the edge off, if you know what I mean. Suddenly they were talking about something of interest. They were interviewing two of the operators of the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. I turned up the volume and found out they were in town and, better still, they were only about 5 miles away from my location. The traffic was heavy but I managed to get off the highway, turned around, and headed for the radio station.

Luck was with me. I pulled in to the lot and rounded a corner, and there it was. A giant dog in a bun on wheels. The operators must have still been inside the building because no one was around. I took the opportunity to take photos (which I later discovered were eaten by my phone) and look through the windows of the vehicle. Very cool. I had kind of been depressed all week, probably because of the dreary weather, but seeing the Wienermobile lifted the veil.

I have experienced many other sightings of interesting vehicles over the years including two Hersey Kisses on wheels, a giant grocery cart, a giant Radio Flyer Wagon, a giant grill, and, this was a really good one, The Batmobile with Batman driving. He passed me in heavy traffic on the interstate near St Louis and I was able to grab the camera and take a couple of good shots without getting in a wreck. When I was on the road 50% of the time, I used to take my camera everywhere and keep it on the seat next to me because I used to see strange things like that pretty often.

My job has changed and I don’t travel too much out of the area any more. Because I don’t get to see too many of these cars now, when I do it’s a very big deal. A bit like the icing on the cake or just maybe, the mustard on the dog.