Coyotes, fire, and eclipse

Our K is continuing to feel pretty good. Her leg doesn't seem to hurt much, and she's enjoying life. At this stage in her disease, that's a victory worth celebrating. We had a gorgeous sunset hike yesterday.

Unfortunately, it included a scary coyote encounter. Since K has started all these pain meds, her responses to my verbal commands have slowed... as if it takes a moment for her brain to process what I said. Well, yesterday evening, four coyotes appeared out of thin air very near us. R was on leash but K was off-leash because I can usually trust her with wildlife. Not yesterday. She chased the pack of silvery coyote ghosts, either not comprehending my calls or choosing to ignore them. When she decides to run, she can be an intense dog, as you can see in the photo below from early May.

Fortunately, K ran out of energy very early in the chase. R and I ran over to save her when there were four coyotes circled around her but still a fair distance from her. I used some evil language as I snarled at the coyotes, saying that they were not going to kill my K. My tone did the job, and they disappeared into the brush. It's amazing how my fearless "Mama Bear" persona can emerge when one of my dogs is in danger. I think that I'll be using a leash with K a bit more until her brain adapts to the new meds.

Back to our trip... Two days ago, I had told you about the morning in the Abajo Mountains when the bear-hunting hounds chased a bear past our campsite to start the day. A little later, I headed out on a solo mountain bike ride. I kept smelling smoke as I rode. At times, it was a strong smell, making me think that it was not just a campfire but rather a forest fire. Because I was riding in canyon country, I usually couldn't see very far to know if a plume of wildfire smoke was visible anywhere near me. Then, I glanced over my shoulder as I descended into a canyon and I saw the scary plume.

I was in a canyon that had only one road in and out of it. Moreover, it appeared as if the fire was between me and our campsite. I turned around my bike and started hammering on my pedals to try to get back to camp. I was seriously scared. The last time that I saw a wildfire plume, it turned into an unthinkably out of control and damaging wildfire. I took this photo on Labor Day 2010 during a mountain bike ride near my house. Believe it or not, the fire had just started. Now that I compare our local fire to the fire in the Abajo mountains, the Abajo fire was tiny by comparison. But, I think that I'll always panic when I see a smoke plume after going through that Labor Day fire, no matter what the size.

As I arrived back at camp, I could see that the fire wasn't far from camp. Yet, in the little clearing where the Runner and the Duo were hanging out, they couldn't see it. I investigated a bit more, and I discovered a "prescribed burn" sign on the 4WD access road. It seems that the Forest Service put up the sign right before starting the fire without warning the people already in the vicinity. Crazy.

Soon, there was ash falling on our campsite. We decided that it was time to leave, especially if we wanted any view of the solar eclipse that was due to start in the next few hours. We drove downward toward the desert, hoping to get below the plume of smoke. At first, it didn't look promising with haze surrounding the mesas.

But, as we arrived on the desert floor, the air cleared. Eventually, from our eclipse viewing site, we could see the fire up on the ridge where we'd been camping but the wind was carrying the smoke away from us. Whew!

We all enjoyed watching the eclipse.

It was an "annular eclipse" so the world didn't become dark at totality. But, to our surprise, it did become cold. I donned a heavy fleece jacket when most of the sun was covered by the moon.

And, it was most gorgeous when the golden sun set behind a ridge with the black moon taking a bite out of it.

We ended up staying in the Abajo mountains for a couple more days, before moving along to a red rock canyon that I adore. K and I relived our "glory days" when she was a one year old dog just learning what it meant to "mountain bike" with me. I'll tell you more about that canyon and our fun there in a future post.

K gave it "one ear up" and a bow of thankfulness that we were given the gift of one more visit together to this beautiful spot!