What strange cargo have you driven behind?

Story time…

I was once behind a big truckload of live chickens. This wasn’t in the country, but on I-45 in Houston! We got backed up in traffic and I was right behind them. Stop & go for miles. I rolled the window down to see if I could hear them. I could! But pew the stench. Still, I was at least entertained. Their feathers were flying loose down the freeway by the millions once we got moving. They were stacked several cages high. The ones in the back had a great view. I wondered if chickens get carsick.

A few years ago there was a huge wind farm going up north of here. We frequent an area along the coast that was a major port where the parts were shipped in and put on huge flatbeds to travel to the assembly point. If on that highway in early morning Saturdays, we would see the trucks carrying the blades which I later read we’re 180 ft long. They were massive! They drove them in sets of 3 trucks with police escorts. 2 blades on each truck IIRC. I don’t know how they made it around corners. Maybe they just never turned. I had no idea something that big would fit on a truck. We eventually found the field where they were storing the blades before loading. Piles and piles of them! Was pretty cool.

How about you?

Bees. Lots and lots of bees.

For a good stretch of highway we were driving behind a semi hauling a flatbed full of beehives. The whole thing was covered in a net, and you could see the bees swarming on the inside of it. Let me say, that is one vehicle you don’t rear-end.

I guess I did see a Viking Ship once. They were filming a movie nearby and apparently needed Vikings.

Two trussed-up pigs on a moto that also carried a family of 5. I expect **Siam Sam **can beat that, though.

I’ve seen what I presume are jet fighters, sans wings, in protective wrappings, going down the highway via flatbed truck.

Plenty of turbine blades and those giant pre-formed trusses that overpasses are built from. Long cargo.

Fracking equipment, natural gas drilling rigs, some of which can make for dramatic - looking cargo. Wide cargo, straddling two lanes.

A column of those little tiny manufactured homes called “park models”.

Flatbed trucks hauling steel rollercoaster tracks and supports to our local Six Flags.

Those are a few of the more unusual sights I’ve seen going down the road in the last couple of years.

Weirdest thing that stands out in my mind was the semi truck pulling two or three semi trucks. Each one had it’s front end mounted on the back end of the truck in front of it, with the back wheels trailing on the ground.

I was driving through Wichita once, behind a pickup truck, carrying a couple of those big cylindrical cardboard containers full of styrofoam peanuts, with no lids. At highway speed, the air turbulence over the tops was sucking the peanuts out, and it was like driving in a snowstorm. My 7 year old son thought it was hilarious.

Recently a truck transporting thousands of bees crashed near Rt 896 and I 95 where I used to live, near Newark, DE (I believe he overturned on that sharp curve on the slip road leading from 896N to I95N. They all escaped and swarmed.

The overhead signs on the interstate warned people to roll up their windows.

Luckily, driving past was a professional bee-wrangler on her way to the university, so she stopped to help out.

I know that’s the stuff of people’s nightmares, but I felt bad for the bees

Cork is a big export product in Portugal. I was behind a very tiny pickup with a load that towered at least ten feet above the truck bed and was haphazardly tied down. It looked weird and top-heavy.

In Mali, it was common to see people transporting goats in the trunks of their Peugeots. The goats always looked somewhat forlorn with their feet tied together. I once saw one tied to the top of the car.

I was in a terrible, awful mood one day as I drove home on the highway. The truck in front of me was pulling what appeared to be an empty horse trailer. Suddenly a camel stuck his head through the back window and just spent a few minutes calmly observing traffic.
It completely changed my outlook and still kind of makes my day when I remember it.

A couple months back I was stuck behind the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

You just wish you had one.

I want one of the Vienna Sausagemobiles. You can park in the “compact” spaces.

A truck carrying an elephant. This was in India a few years ago and I even took a picture!

just wait until they stop. they will give you one.

We saw a swimming pool on a flatbed trailer once. Full sized fiberglass pool, on it’s side, strapped down, heading for the Grapevine on I-5 in southern CA. I guess they do have to transport them somehow, but I had not seen that before.

Hana Hwy on Maui, some hunters bagged a huge boar, and proudly displayed it by tying such that with the tailgate down, it’s head faced backward, menacing everyone behind. They probably did that to get a reaction from the tourists.

Northern Nevada - I have seen hunters strap deer (or at least the head w/antlers) on the roof - for display, I guess.

I’ve been on the road behind many different vehicles, including parade floats. My favorite memory comes with a good scent:

Driving on Hwy 23 in Wisconsin, I got stuck behind a trailer full of snow pea pods. It was dropping pods here and their along the road as it went. Two weeks later, same road, now I’m behind a trailer full of snap pea pods also trying to make a break for freedom from the trailer. Man, those things can be slippery. But all that fresh-picked greenery smelled good.

I saw the thread title and popped in to report that it is never a good idea to follow a chicken truck, but the OP nailed it. The stink is incredible!

Nuclear weapons.

Or so it seemed. A nondescript semi going west on I40 with Government plates, preceded and followed by 4 (2 in front, 2 behind) antenna-encrusted Surburbans with blacked-out windows. I wouldn’t have even noticed if the semi didn’t have government plates.

Of course, it could have been dead aliens, or their spaceship, as well. Or something boring like gold bullion, or cash going to the Federal reverve banks.

I also once saw an Official Air Force truck broke down on I40 as well, and there were several airmen standing about, some even in the roadway, with their M16s out. Wonder what they were hauling.

I’ve also seen the turbine blades going down the freeway. Those truly are huge!

I was driving with my friend in the Transylvanian hinterland at night behind a truck carrying a cargo of pigeons (or at least what looked like pigeons). The truck veered off the road and smashed into a light pole. The occupants got out a bit dazed, but not much worse for wear, and refused any offers of help from us (including use of our cell phone.) It was a truly surreal moment. I assume the driver just dozed off (he wasn’t showing any signs of impaired driving previously.) One moment, we’re coasting behind him at about 35 mph or so, the next, he gently drifts to the right and straight into a light pole (or perhaps it was a tree.) We stopped our vehicle behind him. He and his passenger got out, surveyed the damage, and completely ignored our offers of assistance. It was as if we were completely invisible. It was almost as weird and bizarre as the time last year when I was, in the middle of the afternoon, driving my brother and his girlfriend back from his graduation down a residential street, and just ahead of us a couple of teenaged girls got into their car (on the right side of a one-way street–cars parked on both sides), pulled out, and veered straight across the street, jumped the curb, and ran head-on into a tree.

Growing u p in Wisconsin, on the first week of deer lhunting season, we’d see dozens of cars a day driving through town with a deer or two tied onto the roof of the fenders.