Close Encounters Of The Bird Kind

In my previous posting I mentioned my intention to go for long walks in an attempt to build stamina for my two 10-hour days next week (10-hour days kicked my ass even twenty years ago.) Yesterday I was fulfilling that promise. I walked the arroyo path to Ventura and was fixin' ta walk to Harper when the bike path caught my attention. For many months I've wondered if that bike path went all the way to Wyoming Avenue, but until yesterday I was either headed for Academy Road or was in too much of a crunch to risk a time-consuming adventure that might turn into a dead end. Yesterday I was walking for the sake of walking, so an adventure was just the ticket.

Well, it turns out that the path almost makes it to Wyoming - just a few parking lots in between. It actually ends at the Cherry Hills branch of the library. Anyway, it was a much more pleasant walk than Harper, where the dogs bark and sometimes even snap at me over the concrete block walls between their yards and the sidewalk, mere inches from my new hearing aids.

So I was walking along, trying to keep up a brisk pace, when a big ol' roadrunner came running up the path straight at me. I stopped. It stopped about thirty feet away and stared at me for about ten seconds, then it turned around and ran away. I guess I'm pretty scary looking. Good thing I'm not a coyote.