Lions, Tigers, and Bears

I can’t remember if I’ve told you this one before, so stop me if I have.  A few years ago K and I drove from Albuquerque, New Mexico to a little town in Colorado close to Aspen.  We were there for some introspection and time away.  While the scenery was lovely, I had been white-knuckled for most of the drive due to how close the road was to the side of the mountain.  We drove higher and higher into the mountains and the drop became more intense, and in this part of Colorado, there were no guard rails. Despite the elevation, we enjoyed our trip and as night fell, we had almost reached our destination.  Several miles before, I had begun to see wildlife signs with, “Watch for Bears,” “Moose Crossing” and the like.  I was pretty excited about seeing wildlife alive and its natural habitat, when suddenly in the darkness, I saw the amber reflection of animal eyes and I yelled at K to turn around. I’m not sure why, but I was immediately convinced that I had spotted a mountain lion. Why a mountain lion? I don’t really know; there weren’t signs posted for mountain lions, and I’d had about 2 seconds to come to my conclusion, but I was convinced. We whipped a quick u-turn on the deserted country road and whizzed back to see the mountain lion, which was really a cow eating grass in a ditch. Imagine my bitter disappointment.

This is a similar story to the time that I saw a shark when we were on vacation in South Carolina that was really a dolphin, but that story is for another time. Laters.