Night Running in Cougar Country

While waiting for my hitch installation appointment, I'm trying to catch up on my running.  Having been off for three months due to surgery, I'm pretty much out of shape.  A quick morning 2 miles, one with each puppy, and a couple hours laying in the sun, found me raring to get on the road again .. running that is.  So when my friend and running partner Ofelia called for some night running, I was there!!!

The University of California Merced is nestled in the foothills outside of town and is a great safe place (or so we thought) to run at night.  You can't get lost, right?  Just follow the lights.

It's super moon night, so we thought we could run without our headlamps, but as you can see, it got pretty dark.  We headed out along the dirt/gravel road, listening to the coyotes howling really LOUD!!  There was a good size pack of at least 5.  While worrying about the coyotes, we didn't watch the road very carefully and basically got lost.

After much laughter we finally ran into the fenceline that Ofelia was familiar with from her daytime running, and headed back to the University.  All of a sudden, Ofelia suddenly jumped aside and yelled at me!!!  Cougar .. Cougar!!!  and she wasn't talking about me!!  Hiding behind some trees on a large rock outcropping was this beautiful creature!!

Yeah, you're right.  It's not real ... but at first glance in the dark, you really couldn't tell.  Come to find out, she already knew it was here when her dog tried to attack it a couple weeks previously!!  In one of the big park-like areas is this huge art piece shining with the light of the moon.

 

Heading back to the parking lot after 3-1/2 miles, we came upon this deserted quad area.

At 10:30 we headed home, tired, achey, thirsty and feeling great!!!