One of my favorite pastimes has been going out on my days off to take a hike somewhere. Somewhere is usually the Trinity Trail about 5 miles to the east on the shores of Lake Lavon. Haven't had the opportunity lately for a couple of reasons, mostly because of the seemingly incessant rain we had here in September and October.
Anyhoo, the rains had stopped, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous, I had the day to myself and there were some geocaches on the Trinity Trail which I needed to investigate. So I loaded up the GPSr, threw on some old shoes and my walking stick and headed east. Couldn't have asked for a better day. The dog had been emptied and was back to his pastime of sleeping, the cat was pouting and I hadn't a care in the world.
At least that's what I thought.
After getting myself there and on the trail, I immediately noted that the trail had not had as much time to dry as it needed. No problem. Sidestepped the goop I encountered keeping my shoes and my feet relatively dry. Take the time. No problem. There were animal tracks visible on parts of the trail belonging to the occasional raccoon (drat their times, anyway) and a few others I could not immediately recognize. The trail was blocked by the occasional spider who had managed to spin its web across the trail. Took the time to bypass the spider webs. Had no luck in finding the first couple of caches and finally decided that I would try to catch them on the return trip. Did a small string of caches on the way to what was promised to be one huge Sycamore tree out in the virtual middle of nowhere. Got to the tree skirting a small lake which had appeared on about 300 feet of the trail, completed the Sycamore Loop and was on my way back to try and pick up the other two caches which I had previously missed.
I was about .22 miles from the first of the missed caches when I noted something on the trail about 20 yards ahead. IT WAS A FREAKIN' MOUNTAIN LION!!! Seriously. It bounded on, then off the trail at a pretty good clip, appearing for no more than, say 2 seconds before disappearing.
Drop the idea of looking for the caches I had missed. Drop the idea of preserving some spiders' dinner. Drop the idea of having clean shoes, I was out of there. Pronto. A little over 2 miles from the trail head done in about 20 minutes. I wasted no time getting out of Dodge.
The lovely Miss Carol and I spotted a Bobcat in front of the Allen Senior Center this past spring while we were on the way home from Church - And I later spotted the same Bobcat in the same vicinity back in August. Out in broad daylight watching traffic in Station Park. I've spotted Coyotes, Road-Runners (no crates containing Acme products, though), Armadillos, Skunks, Raccoons, Opossums (Stuart, never having seen one before let out a loud "What is THAT?" the first time he saw one), rabbits and squirrels in Allen city limits and there were rumours of a Mountain Lion here some months ago (prompting my own Top 10 List), but until today, I haven't seen a Mountain Lion in the flesh and in the wild.
I'll keep the idiot cat. I'll tolerate the stupid dog (who I call to walk using the McKenzie Brothers theme - Great White North). But from this point forward, I'm going to be very wary of hiking in Collin County knowing that there's at least one Mountain Lion out there.
Sure. Tell me that he's only after the small stuff. And you have some oceanfront land in Arizona you want to sell me, too.
Be Seeing You!
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