Blog 11

Brainstorming for Short Essay 2

I'm not married to this idea, but it's a start.

Being chased by a coyote on my bike in the middle of the night.

It was one trillion degrees in Kansas, and not a single tree for days to escape the sun. McKinley and I thought we should just ride in the middle of the night to escape the heat, but even beyond midnight it was still in the high 90's; the pavement was still radiating all of that heat back at us.

We rode along a very long, very desolate, stretch of road. All I could see was lights of a factory in the distance which looked like a city skyline; that's all that's visible in the middle of the Kansas night, factory lights. I heard something running alongside me, but my weak headlight only shone down at my wheel. I always heard critters in the night, so I didn't think much of it. Just then it made a barky-yippy noise that was unfamiliar to me. I stood up and cranked on my pedals, but I only felt slightly nervous.

Hours later we rolled up into some random town and sat down on the curb of a vacant gas station. A police officer pulled in and asked us why we were in a random gas station in the middle of the night with fully-loaded bikes. We told him about our trip, and then asked him if he knew what animal made a barky-yippy noise. I mimicked what I heard.

Oh, that was definitely a coyote! He said. We have lots of coyotes around here.

Shit!

After some investigation on YouTube, it was confirmed: a coyote chased us. For some reason, he dropped off and eventually left us alone.

We felt like badasses.

I'm really happy I couldn't see what it was at the time, because I would have shit my pants.