8/1/2019 My Pretty City Girl

We are in Northern California along the Pacific Coast just below the Oregon border. 

Today we went on two hikes. The first one was in a remote state park along a dirt road that abutted a large cattle ranch. The trail was to be 3 miles over to the beach and is shared with horse riders.  As we started down the path my beautiful city girl started to say I don’t no why the horse riders don’t have to clean up after their horses.  After all dog owners need to cleanup after their dogs.  I had to smile.  You see the horses had left horse crap all over the trail. As we moved along she was jumping back and forth across the trail dodging the deposits. I kidded her saying that we would be doing twice the mileage since we were zigzagging back and forth across the trail as we walked.  It was a fun hike and when we made it to the beach we found the beach to be completely undeveloped. As I looked along the surf I saw a seal feeding on fish.  The marine haze was in making it a little chilly but we could still see for approximately 1/2 mile in each direction.  We walked down along the beach.  Interesting thing is that we only came across one shell.  The balance were small rocks and driftwood that had washed up in the surf.

As we hiked back to the car much to our surprise a dozen Big Black Angus cattle had escaped their fencing and had entered the trail blocking our exit.  They looked at us as if they owned the trail and they were not interested in allowing us to exit to our car. As if to say, You are not getting by us until we are done eating. Needless to say the group was as tall as I am and my guess many 100 Lbs heavier. Initially we stopped in our tracks so that if they started to charge us we would have a head start.  

Of course, the rancher was no where in site!

Not sure why, but I started walking towards them clapping my hands figuring one of us was going to have to give and my car was beyond them.  The show down was on!  After the first 10’ I could tell they were hesitating and starting to think about turning and running. At the same time I turned to see if Sandy had followed. She was still frozen in place. I motioned for her to follow me as some of the cows were starting to circle around behind me getting between her and I. As I continued forward the cattle turned and bolted! Thank Goodness! We were able to get to the car. As I approached the car,the cows kept a close eye on me until I started the car and we drove away. 

Lucky guess on my part.  I am not sure what I would have done if they decided to call my bluff :-) 

As we drove away we came across a couple more cows that had escaped and had decided to take a casual walk down the road.  

We then continued further North along the Ocean road Rt 101 into Southern Oregon. The visitor center recommended a trail to the beach at mile marker 146. This trail turned out to be a little challenging because in some places it was 12” wide with a quick drop-off.  Sandy was in the lead as we descended along the cliff trail toward the beach when she did a quick about face when a black snake slithered across the trail directly in front of her. 

It was an eventful day.

Attached are some of our pictures of the hikes