3/9: O.M.G.A.M.F.M.L.

YOU GUYS, THIS WEEK IS IMPORTANT. SO MAKE SURE YOU READ UNTIL THE VERY END. 

A lot of awesome things have happened. 

Sara and I went on a great hike (Aliso >> Upper Oso >> Riverbed Trails) and made friends with snakes.

Sunsets were beautiful with the recent storms. 

Mattie and I watched a few of them from the porch. But she's afraid of weather, so she sits just inside the front door.

And today, TODAY is where things got really wild in cabin life.

It started off normally. Mattie and I woke up, said "hey" to the turkeys, wrote about nanoparticles, ate late breakfast, and I headed off for a hike because I needed to get some things sorted in my head. I left from the cabin and went to the river trails, past Whiterock and Sage Hill, on to Lower Oso and up to Upper Oso, then on to 19 Oaks. I ate a quick lunch (brownies and oranges), then on the way back spent some time in the creek bed along Santa Cruz Trail to hang out with good new friends:

The Toad.

The dirty Banana Slug.

And then I headed back down the same way I came, along beautiful trails without people. I came to the peaceful meadow:

...and then continued on my way and everything was awesome and normal and amazing as usual. 

NO. NO THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED.

LOOK AT THAT PICTURE AGAIN! LOOK AGAIN. 

LOOK VERY CLOSELY. DO YOU SEE???

HERE, I WILL HELP YOU.

NOW DO YOU SEE? 

HERE IS MORE HELP.

 DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS???? 

IT'S A MOUNTAIN LION. A MOUNTAIN LIOOOOOOOOON. A. MOUNTAIN. LION. 

MOUNTAIN LIONNNNNNNN.

MOUNTAIN. 

LION.


Anyone who knows me at all will understand the level of total freakout that happened at that moment. It was a Level 11 Freakout. A Code Red Freakout.

So here's really what happened.

I was strolling along around Mile 9 or so of my hike. I came into the clearing, and saw this big cat lurking through the open meadow about 120 yards away. Somehow, by the will of the wind-Gods (and probably because I smell a lot like dirt) he didn't see me. I stopped immediately, because if I'd taken another step I would have certainly a) peed in my pants, and b) scared him away.

As slowly and silently as I could, given my state of spastic excitement, I crouched behind a small bush  a few feet in front of me. I got my camera out as quietly as possible, every second expecting him (her?) to hear me, smell me, whatever, and take off  - hopefully not toward me, but running somewhere. By a total miracle, I managed to get the camera out of my pack with Mountain Lion still unaware, then inched my way to the side of the bush and snapped the picture above.

Do you know what doesn't really work that well? Trying to take a picture of a mountain lion from 120 yards out when your camera is set to the "Close-Up" mode because you've been taking pictures of toads and banana slugs all day. Hence the "Loch Ness Monster-esque" photo quality. Whatever.

Anyway, I got that one picture, and as soon as my camera made the digital "click" sound, Mr(s). Mountain Lion knew I was there. I'm just going to say "he" from now on, even though there's a good chance it was a lady cougar.

He turned and looked straight at me, and sunk creepily into the tall grass so I could barely see the top of his head and ears. We looked at each other for just a split second, and then he turned around and high-tailed it through the grass toward the creek, staying low and almost out of sight the entire time. Then Mountain Lion was gone, disappearing somewhere close by but totally invisible.

When I was done picking up my brains from all over the trail following the mind-blowing experience of seeing a mountain lion on the SYR trails, I continued on my way, making up songs about cougars and generally just losing my mind with amazement for the last four miles of the hike.

And every once in a while, I glanced behind me to make sure I didn't have a new friend following me home.