Knocking a buzzard off the proverbial wagon...

Yesterday I made a huge mistake. It all started with this video, taken at the oyster (clam?) processing plant at the piers at Bivalve, gateway to Shellpile. Watch and listen...

Now, most of the people I mentioned in the video were either at the wholesale shellfish market, or taking their boats out to the Maurice River. And I realize now that the reason I hadn't seen anyone on previous trips was because it was the dead of winter. When, by the way, the smell wasn't quite as bad, but still present.

To reach the spot where I took this video, I drove down a road whose macadam pavement surrendered to finely crushed shell. I splashed through some watery potholes along the way. And thankfully, I never got out of the car.

From there, I drove back up to State Route 49, noticing as I went along, that the smell, though faint, seemed to permeate the area. Funny, but I hadn't noticed it on the way in. Gosh, I thought -- how awful must it be to live around there with that smell! Maybe one gets used to it over time...

Route 49 is about five miles from Shellpile, and I made my usual stop at the Wawa at the corner of the Mauricetown Bypass. Getting out of the car in the crowded parking lot, I observed the smell was still present. Oy. Don't these people notice it?

Taking back roads to the Parkway, it finally dawned on me: somehow I was bringing the smell of spoiled raw shellfish with me. A rogue oyster hitching on my catalytic converter? Hmm... And then it hit me: the potholes. I'd unwittingly splashed rancid bivalve leachate all over the undercarriage of the car. The stink followed me all the way home... made a temporary home in my garage... and finally departed at the car wash this afternoon.