Friday afternoon, Oct. 10, 2003, Route 45 east of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. A warm October sun shines down from a clear blue sky. This trees along the Montour Ridge paint the landscape with yellows, reds and oranges about a week away from the peak foliage of the season. We cruise along the country road at 50 mph when I notice a speck on the the asphalt.

"I think I just saw a caterpillar crossing the road," I say.

Casey laughs.

"No, really, at first I thought it was just a speck of debris or something, but just before I lost sight of it, it looked long and fuzzy and ... undulating."

She snorted, stifling a laugh, then went silent.

Moments later, she spoke up.

"Now you're going to give me a headache from searching for caterpillars!" she said. "First I can't see groundhogs, now I can't see caterpillars!"

Tessa and I seem to have this knack for noticing groundhogs along the road from speeding cars or in far-off corners of the yard, but then they always disappear before Casey can spot them.

I ease up on the gas a little, even when not rounding bends or cresting hills.

"You're looking for more, aren't you!" she says.

I am.

Our conversation continues and then I spot one inching toward the white line on the right edge of the roadway.

"There!" I exclaim, pointing to the spot, barely able to say anything more before we pass over it.

"Oh my God! You're right!" she cries in relief.

Later, at lunch at Original Italian Pizza in a Lewisburg strip mall (the restaurant otherwise known as "Oip's"), Casey and I discuss the caterpillars crossing the road.

"What could a caterpillar possibly need on the other side of the road that's not available on the side it's already on?" I wonder.

"Maybe they're migratory caterpillars," Casey ventures.

"Are a caterpillar's needs that great?" I ask. "Is their world that big?"

And then I ponder another great mystery of wildlife on our nation's byways.

"You know," I say over my ravioli parmigana, "I've never actually seen a chicken crossing the road."

"Me either," Casey adds. "Do you think the caterpillar's cross for the same reason?"

After lunch we drive onto the Bucknell campus and wander through Casey's former dorm as the students finish class and head out of town for the four-day fall break weekend. We stop in the bookstore where Casey buys cute short shorts with "BUCKNELL" written across the seat and I pick up a fitted baseball cap with an old-style "B" stitched in orange on the blue fabric.

Back on the road back home again, or toward Johnstown, we find ourselves crawling through Friday Penn State escape traffic, a line of cars snaking down from 322 onto U.S. 220, where we marvel at the towering pillars that will someday support the new extension of I-99, a highway in the sky that will someday connect the Turnpike in the south at Bedford to State College.

And then she sees it, for now she is driving, taking the wheel for the second leg of our six-hour drive.

"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" is all she can say. I look out the window to the left side of the road where I see it for myself just before a pickup truck passes between us, obscuring my view: A chicken, bobbing its head and clucking along the side of the road.

We passed it so quickly and had barely a glimpse of it to determine whether it was in the act of crossing, had just crossed or was looking to cross, but it was close enough. I doubt many will argue that it fits the bill.

"What else can we say we've never seen on the side of the road?" Casey wondered aloud before answering her own question. "Hey! I've never seen a million dollars on the side of the road before!"

Neither have we, still to this day. Dammit.

But if you come across a million dollars on the side of the road in the next few days, you'll be sure to pass it along, won't you? Because it is ours, obviously. If it's more than a million, feel free to keep the extra for yourself.