7/10/57 Birthday and the Attacking Squirrel

Do you remember the old “Rocky and Bullwinkle show”.  Well today we experienced the flying squirrel in action.

Being that today is my 61st Birthday, Sandy wanted to do something exciting, dangerous, or life threatening.  Hmmm, insurance paid up?  Should I be concerned?  I am slow on the uptake but beginning to see a pattern. :)

(Last year for my 60th, we did 60 miles on the tandem).  This year we decided to do two hikes.  The first was a warm-up 1 KM called Dickson Falls.  The second was labeled a “Moderate” or “Blue” level hike 4.5KM called “Matthews Head”.  

The sign at the entrance of the trailhead read “ATTENTION - Dangerous Cliffs.  Stay on the Trail”.

One mile into the hike Sandy was in the lead and I was approximately 3 feet behind her.  Down jumps a Squirrel out of a tree from 20’ in the air, narrowly missing her shoulder and almost hitting the bill on my ball cap.  I yelled “What the heck”, it had planted its 4 little feet looked around at me and scampered back up the tree, the whole time chirping and cussing at us.  Luckily I had my trusty hiking pole in hand ready for the duel.  At 20’ it ran out on the branch and we were exchanging words when a second one scampered up higher in the tree.  I assume there must have been a mother and some little squirrels up in the tree so we decided to leave them alone a mosey on.

Later I had to laugh and tell Sandy that the Copper Tinge (from the minerals in the water “read yesterdays blog) in her hair made the squirrel think that she was just a larger squirrel from 20’ above and that is why they attacked us.

The 4.5 KM hike was hard, up-down-sideways-cliffs, but very beautiful.  It did a good job of wearing us out.  We were glad to see the trail-head and our car at the end.  Attached are some of the beautiful pictures we took of the day.

PS. To wrap it up we stopped at the local bakery, bought cookies, and a pie just to make sure we consumed the calories that we had just burned off.  After-all on your Birthday you should be able to do anything that your heart desires :-)