Scaredy Cat

So..... as I have been sitting here waiting to watch footage of the Curiosity landing on Mars I have been feeding a recent obsession I have acquired. It's quite unhealthy and it's sort of consuming......and it's also kind of weird. Mountain lions. Yep. Weird.

In the few weeks that we have been here I have been doing a lot of bike riding, since I don't have a whole lot else to do (I got the teaching job BTW). Most of my mountain bike rides have taken me into the Marin Headlands. The Headlands are beautiful and secluded and full of wildlife: I have seen bobcats three times (once with a kitten), coyotes, and deer. No big deal and pretty awesome right? Well, I have run into a couple of bikers who told me that they or friends of theirs have run into mountain lions on their rides. Eesh. So I went home and read all that I could find about mountain lions in California. There has been a lot to read. Turns out, tons of people have seen them in the Headlands, and all on trails that I am riding. Luckily, no one has been attacked here, but a few years ago a couple of mountain bikers were killed in Southern California.

I don't know why I am freaked out now, when I wasn't in Utah. I even saw one in Utah (from the car) and I still wasn't scared out on the trails. Perhaps here it is because there are lots of them packed into small parks and relatively closed off spaces. I can't stop thinking about the one I saw in Utah. Walking through a campground. Of at least two hundred people. It was huge and it wasn't scared at all. 


The other thing that makes it scary here is the thick, all-enveloping fog. I can see myself, alone on the trail, visibility reduced to five feet, and then, WHAM! No one around to hear me scream, even if they could see me. Saturday I went on a lonely ride at the top of the Headlands that started out as kind of foggy and ended up as mega foggy. I wanted to stop and take a picture but I was too freaked out to stop. What, and make it look like I am injured or lost? That would just be a mountain lion lunch invitation. So I tried to find a picture online. This is pretty much what the trail looked like:

I joined a women's mountain bike group, but they only go once a week. So the rest of the time I am on my own. But not really. Because I am pretty sure the mountain lions are there too. And this is what I feel like:

But replace these:

with this:


Disclaimer: I actually think mountain lions are way cool and beautiful. Also moderately to severely terrifying. Thus my obsession.