Guinea pigs in Iowa

Perhaps the strangest story from my trip to Iowa the other week involved a suspect roadside guinea pig....

My mom and I were driving in the country around my hometown and I saw something beside the road. I asked, "What is that?" We couldn't quite tell what it was but as we got closer, my mom said, "I think it's a guinea pig."

I responded, "What would a guinea pig be doing by the side of the road? I guess those corn-fed guinea pigs get pretty big, don't they?" (The conversation went downhill from there and I could hardly drive I was laughing so hard.)

It turns out that it wasn't really a guinea pig at all ... it was a wild turkey.

[To my mom's credit, she had her wildlife mixed up. What she really meant was a guinea hen, which reportedly look like a small wild turkey. This, according to my sister, who then went on to talk about how Brazil has wild guinea pigs...at which point I could no longer discuss guinea pigs!]