My Walk in the Hills
On Monday, Labor Day, Trev and I spent the afternoon at Costanoa. For those of you who don't know, this is a campground for people who hate camping. You can bring a tent and sleep in it if you really want to, or park your RV, or you can stay in a tent-cabin, or a cabin, or the lodge. Or you don't have to stay overnight at all, just hang out and pretend you are a camper. No one will know. There's a pretty nice restaurant with pretty good food and completely unpredictable service, and you can dart across Highway One to the beach. In the other direction there's a trail leading up a hill, with nice views of the Bay.
So after a fortifying campers' meal of pizza and pinot noir and a roast artichoke (OK and a banana split...IT WAS A HOLIDAY), Trev and I set off up the hill. This was about 5 p.m., prime hunting time for various grassland creatures. We saw a bobcat, which was a beautiful russet color with spots, and which looked at us with supreme boredom and contempt. Then we didn't see anything for awhile, other than deer and birds. Which are fine, nothing wrong with deer or birds. But in their very familiarity they can lull you into thinking that nature is benign and predictable, when in fact it has you in its cross-hairs...
On the way back down I was walking ahead, not in the moment as usual, probably thinking about my novel or reminiscing about the banana split, when I saw something waving in the grass. Maybe it was an unusually large tuft of pampas grass? Except it was black and white, and suddenly Trev was yelling and pulling me back. So it was a skunk. I came this close to getting sprayed head to toe. But I didn't. I guess it would have been a better story if I did.
It's all I've got, folks. I've been preoccupied. Back to Dracula.
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