Red Eyes

This is what I saw except the color of the one I saw was black with red eyes just a few steps from us while caching out in Poko last night.

We headed out soon after my Grandma and Aunt came down for a visit. We had planned to meet with the lady that runs the Geocaching store. We were going to go to her house to see and physically hold all the neat stuff she sells on her website. She has 3 gorgeous kids who were working on creating a robot for a school project with the help of her husband. And while we stood there in the store part of their basement we listened to her tell us stories of all their caches. They have done over 2000 in 4 years! They said their record was 93 caches in one day!!! Can you imagine? We were amazed by her coin collection and her stories of all the really neat caches hidden out there, that are totally hidden creatively. I’ll just say that there’s one that you need a bike pump for, in order to inflate a clue that bobs up out of the water of a lake!

So after the visit we were going to head out and do a few caches around her place before it got dark. The daylight evaporated fast and we soon found ourselves in the middle of a forrested park we had never been to before in a city we don’t frequent often. A river ran water speedily down the side of a slippery steep embankment that we went down a bit to search. I’m glad I had brought my poker or else I’m not sure I would have been able to get back up! It was scary being there. Very scary. As I was climbing up this embankment I watched Jeff walk away along with the flashlight he was holding, his head in his blackberry’s gps and I felt alone. Trying to get up that hill as fast as I could. I’m glad I have hiking shoes! They helped.

So then while following Jeff, I realized that we had the wrong coordinates and it didn’t help that the gps was bouncing in and out of activity. I figured out that I HATE wandering around a dense forrest, in the pitch black with just one sharp poker in my hand.

We continued down the path, snow crunching under our feet listening to the river racing beside us. Jeff stopped and said, "aw we lost connection again" with his back to me and what looked like his head in his gps. I saw, an animal. Staring at us. Just his eyes glowing. Stabbing me in the darkness. Stabbing me with fear! And by this time I had pulled my flashlight from my purse, so it was not only Jeff with a flashlight and me with the poker. I shone my light into the animal’s eyes, hoping the big light would scare it away, like it would think it was the big glowing eye of an unknown animal, something it might be afraid of. Ha! Ya right, it didn’t budge, but swayed a bit. So then I thought, what am I doing? Maybe it likes the light. Maybe it’s going to charge toward the light. So I shone it down a bit. This is when I saw Jeff take a step in front of me. By this time, he too saw the beast! But I seeing him standing in front of me, did not feel safe at all. Are you kidding me? That’s when another animal, like a dog came around the corner near the backside of the one that was standing there in front of us. I was thinking oh great, the whole pack of wolves/coyotes is meeting and greeting us here! to EAT US!!! That’s when I could not move. I froze right up! Then a piercing sound echoing the night sky. Jeff said, "Hi boy!" LIke come on. What are you doing? The wolves/ coyotes are going to know we are alive now! I just wanted to play dead, standing up. Grr…  Then the animals came charging toward us. At that moment the Eskimo looking man that came walking around the corner didn’t help the situation at all. Thinking that that may be the owner of just a couple of dogs. Walking his dogs. I couldn’t shake the fear off! And I stood there thinking the worst thoughts ever. Then I started to pray frantically! for protection.

Soon the dogs passed. I didn’t move. I stood frozen for about 5 minutes. Then I burst into tears. Shaking. Grabbing onto Jeff. I said, "I’m so scared! I don’t want to be here. Let’s go! It’s too dark. I have to go. I want to go. We have to go now!!" Jeff was just a little upset. Mad because he had it in his mind to find this cache, since we had driven all the way out to this city to visit the store and search for caches while there. I had foiled his plans. But I was bawling and shaking and felt like I was going to collapse. So we headed out. I not feeling any better that Jeff called me a "cry baby". No comfort at all, just compromise. We walked back over the snow, a little quicker this time, and headed back out through the very dark, densly treed scary forrest, and climbed back into the van. This is where I continued to shake and explain to Jeff why I was so frightened. I seriously thought I saw wild animals. He said, "I saw the man walking with his dogs before they turned the corner, so I knew it was just him and his dogs. But did you see me take a step in front of you?" I said, "ya, but I didn’t feel safer with that. The animal, if wild, would have eaten you first, and then me for dessert. Your the turkey and I’m dessert!!!"

Anyhow, we didn’t end up doing any caches really yesterday. Just bought some really nice stuff, to hide our caches in. And ate at a Sushi Restaurant there for Supper. And for Dessert we visited a Gelato store where a cache was to be hidden, but the owner knowing it’s hidden close to his property said it has not been there for awhile. But we were able to buy some really nice gelato from him. And this guy, the owner, was SO nice!!! One of the nicest people I’ve met. He was SO giving! It was amazing.

So the highlight of this evening was the Creme Brule gelato mixed with Fruit des Lure gelato all nestled into a small waffle cone. We even bought a large container and filled it with 5 flavours that we took home with us. Flavours like: Peanut Butter and Chocolate mix, Pink Grapefruit, Cotton Candy, Bubble Gum, and Coconut. Talk about comfort food, hey? After an evening like that!!!

I’m glad we were not eaten by wild animals last night, and I’m glad I got to see my Grandma and Aunt who came over for a visit. I couldn’t believe Nacho though. While my Grandma sat on my couch, Nacho sat behind her head, and nawed on her hair. He’d rub his head against hers and then he’d hold her head like a squirrel holds a nut and open his mouth wide like he was about to take a bite of the head-sized nut! That was a little scary. And this happened just a couple hours before our night walk! So my fear was building and building all day.

The fear started with seeing my Grandma who has Cancer and is taking Chemo pills for it. I’ve never had anyone close to me die yet. She was treating me like she’ll never see me again.

Then Nacho chewing on her.

Then us doing a really easy cache outside of the "store house" that was hidden in a log. It was a Harry Potter theme. With the first thing to see when opening the log is a picture of a black wolf with red glowing eyes.

And then the steep embankment, sliding almost into the river, while watching the light walk away to seeing what I thought were wild animals right in front of us!

What a day!! Boy am I ever glad it is over.