Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I fell asleep early last night.  I knew that I had left my phone charger in my office, but thought I might get up during the night and get it.  I was awakened by my wife moving my phone and thought I saw her putting it on the charger.  I thought, "How sweet.  She got my charger for me."  Only she didn't.  There is another chord next to my outlet, but it's not the right one.  So I woke up to my phone being at 27%.  I was up pretty early, too, but I didn't go running.   I thought maybe I'd do a 5 mile loop, but my two youngest daughters are staying home again from school, and my wife said she had to take our other daughter to school early for some testing.  She said she was going to do Hilltop afterward and asked if I wanted to come.  So I agreed to.  As we drove through the second roundabout crossing the freeway, I saw a chicken in the road.  The poor thing was trying to make it to the side.  Where my wife parked was only about 0.4 miles away, so I decided to run back to it to see if it was okay.  I crossed the road (no jokes, please), and ran back to the roundabout.  I couldn't see it.  I slowed down and started running back looking for it everywhere.  That's when I heard a car on the other side of the road stop and start honking.  I quickly crossed over to the median. where the, not chicken, but rooster, had gone to the other side.  It tried to run away from me, which I figured it would, but it was in pretty bad shape.  I tried to pick it up, but it wriggled away from me.  I let it walk a little more across the road.  Luckily there wasn't a whole lot of traffic, but the few cars that were coming were being courteous and driving around us.  I tried picking it up again, but it wouldn't let me.  Then I heard a lady hollering that she had a box.  I looked down the sidewalk and a the lady and her daugher were hurrying up the way with a box and a towel.  By now the rooster had gotten to the other side of the road, and had stopped right at the curb.  And there were a lot of cars coming.  So I reached down and got a good hold of it, picked it up, and put it in the box.  They covered it with the towel.  She wasn't sure what she was going to do with it.  She said she was a teacher and was going to bring it to school.  I said I hope it survives.  They said they saw it get hit by a car.  It probably has internal bleeding and I'm afraid it won't last much longer.

When I got back to where my van was parked, it was gone!  I briefly entertained the idea that my wife was hiking up the hill and it had been stolen.  I called her to see where she was.  She was having tummy issues and went to the local grocery store to relieve herself.  So, I decided to start without her.

I started running up the hill.  I had forgotten my inhaler, and I was wheezing a bit.  I had to stop like three time going up.  Right before the top I saw this guy that looked like a real mountaineer.  He had a long scraggly beard and those mountain poles.  He was booking it down.  I got to the top and decided to wait until my wife came back so I could wave at her from the top.  At least 5 minutes went by.  I was just about to call her again when I saw the van pull up.  I waited another minute or so until she finally got out of the van.  She started walking around the base of the hill.  I waved, but she couldn't see me.  So I called her.  As soon as she heard the phone ring, she looked up and waved.  She answered and I asked what she planned on doing.  She said she would do whatever until I was done.  Well, I was hoping she was going to hike to the top and back.  I was going to tell her that I would just run down the road towards home and she could pick me up when she was done.   But since she was hiking around the base, I decided to just run down and try to find her.

When I turned around to go down, the mountain man had reached the top again.  He was running around the plateau, and I started running down.  It wasn't long before he was running down and hot on my tail.  I moved over and ran in the sand so that he could pass me.  The last stretch down the hill is very rocky due to the recent storms we've had.  At least, that's what my wife says.  I've never seen it any different, so I'll take her word for it.  But it's rocky enough where I'm gonna slow way down, so that I don't trip.  Mountain man just kept cruising.  By the time I had gotten to the bottom, he had already turned around and started back up.

I wasn't going to do doubles today, so I ran down the dirt road that I had seen my wife walking on.  I ran all the way around the west side of the hill and saw that the road was about to dead end.  I looked around for my wife, and spotted her up on another trail on the hill.  I hollered at her, but she had her ear phones in and didn't hear me.  That's when I had the idea to sneak up behind her and scare her.  I started running up the trail which went up and as it turns to go around the north side of the hill, goes back down.  I saw that she covered this part pretty quick, but she was walking and I would be able to catch her soon.  I tried to run on her left side because I figured if she turned her head, it would be to the right.  When I was about 20 feet away she turned her head to look up the hill to see if she could spot me.  Unfortunately she spotted me behind her.  I scared her a little.  But I really wanted to make her pee her pants.  Oh well. 

I walked with her a little bit until the trail ended at a golf course.  I said where now?  She said that sometimes she cuts through, which is tresspassing, and sometimes she walks around and turns back around to follow the trail back.  I told her that I would meet her at the van.  I then finished up my run by going back to the locked van.  I sat down on the bank of a small wash and waited for her.  My phone was down to 5%, but it lasted.  When I got home and looked at my Flybys on Strava, I realized that the mountain man was my old friend Brian that I see all the time when I'm running Usery.  How embarrassing.  I didn't even recognize him behind all that scruff.  I sent him a message apologizing.  But overall it was a fun morning.  Prayers for the rooster.