Coyote Story #2

The next time I saw a coyote was just this past February. We had just moved across the USA to Seattle, and we were taking a vacation on the coast before Mister and the Lady had to go back to work. We went to the Olympic Peninsula and stayed in a cabin on the water. Oh, you should've smelled it all!

We hiked a path down this tremendous cliff through gnarly rainforest to the beach. We were sniffin things and diggin up rocks and havin a grand ol time! It was warm, and the sun felt so good on my face. Ahhh... The Lady and I sat on a driftlog near the bottom of the cliff. I was on a leash cuz Lady knew there were all sorts of critters I'd want to chase.

I smelled something verrrry familiar. The Lady and I both turned around at once, just in time to see a little coyote stumble on the sandy path above us. He lost his footing and started tumbling down the cliffside, headed right for us! Oh, that guy was so scared! He scrambled and clawed at the sea grass, desperately trying not to land on scary us. hen he was just about five feet above our heads he caught a root and pulled himself onto a lower part of the wildlife path. He scrambled out of there so fast and disappeared in the forest.

Of course, all of this happened in only a few seconds. I was shocked, and all the Lady had time to do was shout Mister's name. (She wanted to make sure that Eli was leashed, but didn't even have time to spell it out.) Eli and I started shouting at the little guy to come back and play (he was nowhere near as scary as the East Coast coyotes), but he'd vanished.

I like to imagine now what would've happened if he had landed on us. My butt is sore just thinking about it. I like coyotes plenty, but I think I'll just admire them from afar.

P.S. I still need to have our vacation photos developed. We don't have a coyote shot, but we do have beach pictures!!