Dr. Doolittle

Day 8

After I left the Bike the US for MS group I headed further east, toward the Adirondack mountains.  Though I was still a few days away from the range, the hills let me know what was coming .  There isn't much to tell about today as cycling is concerned.  I only went about 65 miles because my knee started acting up again.  I was planning on going 80-90 miles, but whatever.  The kids in the group, and the other cyclists I have met only go 65 on average so I didn't feel too bad about it.  What is mentionable about today has to do with the odd interactions I had with animals.

#1  Nothing is special about seeing cows.  They are everywhere.  I saw more of them when I was in Canada, but that's probably do to the path I was taking and the specific topography.  In Canada I passed hundreds of farms, most if not all with at least some numbers of cows.  All they do is graze, look up at you riding by every now and then, and go back to grazing.  This was the story up until my 8th day on the road.
As I approached this one tract of land on the left side of the road I saw cows.  Nothing special yet.  There was about 20 or so of them and again, nothing special.  What was weird however, is that they were all looking at me.  What makes it even more weird is that not one went back to eating.  All 20 were just looking at me and not moving.  Naturally I stopped because I hadn't seen this before.  They didn't move, they didn't look down or make any noise, they just looked at me.  Now, before this they were all scattered, but as I stopped they all bunched together.  As if I was the weird creature and they were all whispering about me, while not looking away.  They began to get closer and closer to eachother, still not one looking away.  At this point it had been about five minutes.  Me looking at the cows, the cows looking at me.  I snapped a few pictures just so stunned by this event. 

They looked friendly enough, as friendly as a cow cult could look, so I approached the fense.  As I walked a little closer to the fense the cows walked a little closer.  I took a few steps, the cows took a few steps.  We did this dance until I was at the fense and the cows were about 5 feet away, all looking at me.  I reached out my hand and one cow hesitantly came up to me.  She put her nose up to my hand and licked me.  I jumped back because I have never saw a cows tongue before (large, blue, pink, and black) and as I jumped back and made a "ehhh" noice (high pitched of course) the cows jumped back about a foot and made some grunts (low pitched of course).  Now knoing that it wasn't trying to eat me I reached back over the fense, the cows came closer, and the same cow began to lick my hand.  It was really strange.  I tried to take a picture but all that came out was the cow looking at my hand and no tongue.  It is still a good picture tho.
I was laughing at the whole thing for a bit.  It was unlike any experience I have ever had with a cow, let alone a group of cows.  When I turned to walk back up the hill to my bike, on the other side of the road was another equal size group of cows all looking at me!  "What is going on!" I laughed.  It was so strange.  I had cows on either side of me, all staring at me like I had fallen out of the sky and they have never seen a person before.  It really was something else.

#2  I decided to camp in a state park overnight.  I thought It would be a good change from the private campgrounds and away from people, but I was half right.  There were little children running around like they all just drank mountain dew and coffee within minutes of me arriving.  I probably would have been pissed if I wasn't so freeking tired from my knee hurting and the hills.  I made my tent right away and took a nap. 
Before I fell asleep I did the classic roll around until you find a comfortable position for five minutes, which so happens to be the first position you tried dance.  When I tried to lay on my stomache I noticed a little chipmunk inches from my head.  The little guy was checking out my tent and probably looking for scraps.  Because I knew he hadn't noticed me yet I cleared my throat twice. *gruhh gruhh*  The chipmunk immediately looked up, saw my eyes and took off like a missle into the woods.
 
Not too long after I finally fell asleep only to be woken up by something rubbing against my foot.  Turns out that the chipmunk was back and decided to play chicken with my foot.  I looked over down my tent, heard the chipmunk running, then bounce off of my tent near my foot.  I said "What the hell are you doing!", he looked at me, and took off.  Crazy little bastard.

#3  After my nap I saw my mother had called so I got out of my tent and walked to the sunny portion of the camp grounds to call her.  I walked to the sunny part because the temperature had finally begun to raise thus triggering mosquitos.  About 10 minutes in to talking with my mom I look back at my tent and gear only to see a large raccoon put his paws up on the picnick table, where I put my gear, and sniff around.  I told my mon "hang on", put down the phone, raised and extended my arms and said "What the hell are you doing?!  Get out of here, what is going on today?"  As I was talking to the raccoon and walking closer, he finally noticed me and just looked at me.  His face had the expression of question and innosence as to imply that he was doing nothing wrong and had no business to be interupted by me.  As I got closer he walked away but not far.  He walked behind a tree.  Not up the tree.  Not behind as if he was walking away and dissappeared behind a tree for a while, but rather he walked behind a tree and stayed there.  "I can see you ya' know", I said.  "I know you're there, it's not like I think you've vanished".  He then reached with his left paw on the right ride of the tree and stook his head out only enough to reveal one eye.  "Yeah, I know now get out of here".  He started walking away again, but only to the next tree.  This went on for about 6 trees until he walked away to harrass another camp site.

I went back to my mom, talked to her for a while, and went back to nap some more.  Mid nap I heard a dad say to his kids "Oh kids look, right over there behind the firepit (my firepit), there's a raccoon!".  My eyes open.  "He's probably looking for some food" he said.  That little F&@%$R!