The big one?

Dangerous wildlife

We once spent a couple of weeks hiking up the Lost Coast of northern California.

We arrived one evening at our B&B, a retired lighthouse. After settling in, we went to find somewhere to eat. There wasn’t much choice. In fact there was only one eatery in town. Which served either burger or king crab. Same price. After three meals, we chose the burger.

One night I woke to find the whole bed shaking. This is it, I thought. We’re right on the St Andreas Fault...it’s the big one! I considered waking Mr McG, but decided to put my glasses on first. If I was going to be in an earthquake, I needed to see. Nothing further happened and after a while I fell asleep again.

Over breakfast, i started telling Mr McG. To my surprise he laughed. A lot. In fact he couldn’t stop. When he managed to speak again, he explained that he’d been dreaming about (inexplicably) punching his brother, and had briefly woken himself up thumping the head of the bed.

I was SO SURE it had been an earthquake.

On the same trip, we came across a dead red-shouldered hawk. We thought we’d gift it to the nearest visitors’ centre, as they had a display of stuffed local wildlife. We proudly presented it to Lenny, the last of the Miwok (the earlier inhabitants of that part of the coast), who was manning the till. He reacted as if we’d brought him a live anaconda. Turned out he HATED wildlife.