When you are driving along on the open country road, traveling from point A to point B, you probably aren't going to pull over and stop. Maybe we've been conditioned by horror movies to stay in our cars, to keep moving.

About 10 years ago, on a bike ride to Rancho Seco, I got stuck riding for about 5 miles on Jackson Highway. For part of the journey, I was flanked by massive shrubs on both sides of the road, coaxing me away from the edge into the road itself.

It was a terrible place to be on a bike, and it would have been a terrible place to break down in a car.
But it got me thinking... this would be a great place to plant something odd on the side of the road. No one could stop here.

Perhaps an alien corpse? A ghost? Fake roadkill?

Yes. That was it! Fake roadkill!

Fast forward 10 years to last weekend. It was time for this dream to become a reality.

Leaving interesting objects in random places is easy, keeping them there is a little harder. You can try liquid nails, screws, bolts, stakes or steel cables. With the roadkill, I just leaving them in a place which was inconvenient to access.

The easiest way to create fake dead animals is to spray paint stuffed animals, and Deseret Industries Animal Hospital on Auburn Blvd. was FULL of stuffed animals. 

June helped me pick out a few volunteers.

The animals were now completely healed, ready to be released back into the wild.

Their survival in the wilderness depended on them being able to blend with their environment. To help, I decided to spring for a Mystic Tan tanning session.

Mystic Tans were $25 each, which was a little out of my budget, so I went with plan "B".

With a more natural hair color, these seven wild  friends were ready to be introduced into the wooded plains of Rancho Murieta.

Early the next morning, I loaded all of their cages into the hatchback and set out onto Jackson Highway. In 15 minutes, the hum of the city was  behind me. As I crossed Sunrise Boulevard, the cement shoulder gave way to mud, and I began to hear the sounds of other migrating stuff.

Please continue reading page 2 of the Fake Roadkill Prank.