Things You Don't Expect To See on the Bike Path

There are things I've more or less come to expect to see on the bike path around here. Like gaggles of geese (which can actually be a pretty big hazard), and the occasional snake. When it's a rattler, it's a bit more disconcerting...I'm pretty sure this big guy was a gopher snake, but I wasn't about to get any closer to make sure. He was about four feet long!

Once I even saw a strange parade of big orange crawdads walking down the bike path with their claws in the air (wish I had a photo of that one). But what I didn't expect to see last night as I bombed down the bike path on my way home was an ancient Deadhead-driven bright orange VW van! Kind of like this one, driving straight down the bike path! I told the driver that he was on a bike path (gee, maybe the fact that the path is only as wide as your vehicle and there are no street markings might've been a clue), and he kept insisting that he had read the sign and it didn't say it was a bike path. I think a little bit of ganja might've gone a long way toward that conclusion as well.

I have no idea if or how he get himself off of the path, but I continued on my merry way home. Less than a mile later I came around a corner and almost ran into a cop car, also driving down the path. The officer warned me of a drunk and disorderly transient ahead of me who had passed out across the path and somebody had taken a magic marker to his face and tied his shoelaces together. Apparently he was combative enough that the officer couldn't get him to let him help untie the shoes. So he warned me that he might still be in the path. Luckily he was off to the side by the time I cruised cautiously by. Luckily there were no more strange encounters for the rest of my ride!