coyote

It’s always the question, which way to go. See, I wanted somewhere with a view, somewhere with a little turnout so I could sit in the shade and not be right on the trail. It should be a little private, a bit hidden, so I could sit and have a think without every passerby just having a look and feeling obligated to say “Hello”. So I parked in the upper lot, a tiny six-spotter with two big oak trees and a garbage can. Well, there used to be a garbage can there; I didn’t notice it this time.

The trail was quite immediately in a shallow ditch, either side was raised a couple of feet above the surrounding flat. And also, quite immediately, I saw fifteen or twenty yards ahead a lone coyote focused on a patch of grass just off the right side of the trail, an unexpected surprise so soon into my park time. I clapped, gently, and continued walking. Coyote, unperturbed and unstartled, lazily looked in my direction and back to his patch of grass. He weighed the options, continue the curious hunt, or depart the scene before the human arrived. He glanced in my direction again, and I continued to approach in my steady walking pace, and Coyote decided that next time was a better time than this time and started a slightly hurried trot down the trail ahead of me. That was neat, I thought, as I watched him get slowly further away, and disappear behind the berm where the trail left this weird trough in the middle of nowhere.

When I left the weird trough too, I could see Coyote again, hunting at patches of grass on the right side of the trail, just like last time. We did the same pattern again, but this time I could follow his departure much further, and he stayed on the trail to a junction a hundred yards up, by a tree, and there he puzzled about where he wanted to go a bit. I kept walking and watching and after thinking about it, Coyote decided to continue on the same trail that I intended to follow. I had resigned to going to the same spot as the last time I had been out here for a sit and a nature recharge. Coyote was leading me right to it, and not too bothered by doing it either. Now though, now Coyote was aware, and kept a curious eye on my progress every now and then. At one point in our journey together Coyote decided it was safe enough for a bathroom break, right there in the middle of the trail. I stepped carefully around the scat when I got to it, but continued to follow the trail and the coyote.

The trail was coming to the backside of the hill, and after a couple of more trees it plunged right down the wide face of it to the bottom. Coyote had other plans, and at a game junction he left the main trail behind, and me with it. Coyote stayed on the top of the hill, while I went steeply down it, and found the wide main trail that led to my old spot. The words were on the back side of the sign as I approached it. It said “not a trail, do not enter”, but I wasn’t entering. I was exiting.

jg

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