What lay around the bend

About 10 to 12 years ago, something odd happened as I was driving late one night.

I was in Arizona on a road going into an increasingly mountainous area. The road was fairly empty, but there were occasional cars and trucks, sometimes coming in clumps. I went up a long slope, and then the road turned abruptly right, went a short distance, and turned abruptly left. Because of the mountains, I couldn't see around the curves. It was a way I had been many times before.

For some reason, I was very cautious and suspicious as I went around the second curve. As I came into a view of the road beyond, I saw a forklift carrying what appeared to be a telephone pole across the road. There was a long flatbed truck parked a ways off to the left of the road, with some poles on the bed and some on the ground. I think some may have been at least partly on the road, also.

I immediately stopped, since I was prepared for something being there, and sat in my car and watched the forklift slowly carry the telephone pole across the road to the right. It was going away from the truck, so it was evidently not concerned with putting it back on the truck. It all took place in darkness. There may have been a flashlight or two in use somewhere, but not much more. The road did not have any barriers set up, either.

Although it seemed to take a long time for the forklift to cross the road and get out of my way, it probably actually wasn't too long. I began to get concerned, though, that someone might come up behind me, maybe even some big truck, and run into me. Nothing like that happened, though, and eventually the forklift was out of the way and I drove on past it.

Good thing I had that suspicious feeling, though.