Motorist Convinced He Just Saw Turtle On Side of Road

PINNACLE, TN -- On what was supposed to be a typical President's Day weekend trip to Nashville, traveler and Champaign, IL resident Greg Carrol is certain he saw what appeared to be a turtle on the side of the highway. "Sure we were driving along at a good speed, so things were kinda blurry", said Carrol. "But damned if that thing wasn't a big 'ol turtle". While his vantage point from the center lane of State Highway 24 was less than ideal for discerning between roadside animals and animal-shaped objects, Carrol remembered the turtle being roughly the size of a small boulder, 40 to 60 pounds, and jagged with a scratchy, grainy surface. And although Carrol himself was moving at a high rate of speed down the highway, he is "just about as convinced as [he] could probably be" that the turtle was stationary, though it could have just been walking very slowly as "turtles are known to do, you know". Carrol also described the turtle's color as a dark tone; possibly onyx, stony grey, or a shade of granite, which reaffirmed his original assumption that the animal could have been a breed of southern black turtle. Despite his familes' insistence that turtles of that size are not considered indigenous to that region of the United States, Carrol held fast, citing a previous vacation occurrence. "That thing was definitely a turtle, it looked just like all the other turtles I saw last year in Colorado at Rocky Mountain National Park."