Most days I’ve biked in to work this year I’ve seen a young tabby cat on the Stevens Creek Trail:
She’s a small cat (which is why I think of her as “she” though I don’t really know), and she’s usually lounging by the side of the trail. She seems (appropriately) cautious of bicycles, since the one time I tried to attract her she seemed to want to avoid it. I started thinking of her as the “trail tabby”.
Last Friday I saw her wearing a light blue collar, which was comforting because it meant someone was taking care of her. (She is small, but not thin.) There aren’t any homes nearby, but there’s a hotel so maybe she’s the resident mouser.
This morning, though, I stopped because a couple of guys on bikes were standing over her and she was lying on her side. Fortunately she was okay, just relaxing in the sun, but it turned out that the collar had been put on her by another passer-by, and it had a note asking if whoever received it owned the cat. So, apparently she’s not owned after all! One of the cyclists was considering taking her to a vet, and contacting the person who’d left to note. So, I decided to leave it to him.
While I’d miss seeing her on my rides, hopefully those folks can find her a good home, since she seems like a friendly little cat.
Anyway.
I continued riding down the trail and half a mile on was almost stopped by two other cyclists who was blocking most of the trail talking to each other. I rang my bell and said “Excuse me, coming through”, but they didn’t move or even acknowledge me. So I maneuvered between them…
…and saw a four-foot snake stretched halfway across the trail on the other side of them.
Thanks, guys, for doing nothing to alert me to it, just standing there seeming like jerks blocking the trail.