September 21, 2009

It was snowing hard on the last day of summer in the Rocky Mountains. I was with three work colleagues tired from a long day in the field. We were stopped in traffic at the entrance to the Edwin C. Johnson tunnel, the highest vehicular tunnel in the world, on our way back to Denver in the late afternoon. Freakish white-out conditions at over 11,000 feet. Too soon, even for up here. Through my fogged up window in the rear seat of our SUV, I could barely make out the dimensions of a tractor trailer in the next lane. The truck was squealing even though it was fully stopped, as we were. I wiped the condensation from my window with the sleeve of my jacket. It was a livestock truck. I wiped the window again for a better view. The trailer was filled with pigs. Little bitty pigs. Hundreds of them, on three levels. I had never seen a stacked array of so many animals like this before. They were agitated. I watched flashes of pink appear and then disappear through the slats of the container as the pigs maneuvered and fought for position. Flat noses pressed through the ventilation holes blowing steam into the freezing alpine air. Most troubling were the faces pressed firmly against the trailer wall, just a few feet away form me, bright eyes peering out of the holes, searching for clues as to what was going on out there. I was wondering the same thing.