Tara and I have managed to hobble home from our Arizona adventure (this wasn't a vacation). The swagger was partly due to our ridiculous amounts of luggage and extra purchases and also due to the fatigue and bruises acquired from our adventures. The highlight of our trip was our encounters with animals. I seriously felt like Dr. Doolittle.The most memorable event was while hiking down into the Grand Canyon. While hiking I stopped for a moment to peer over a cliff and saw this pleasant appearing ram which quickly seemed enamored by our company. I thought it was great and was taking pictures unaware of the danger ahead for us (who knew a ram could climb a cliff???). So we continued walking (to Tara's credit she was quite hesitant to continue) and the ram was running parallel to us, but still separated by a cliff.
The drama all began when we lost sight of the ram and turned a corner to find the ram on the trail right in front of us.
At this moment I was filled with horror but level-headed Tara remembered to stand still. I threw that out the window when it started running towards us (still with a large cliff on one side of us). I said something to the effect of "oh no, run!". So we took off running while I was freaking out in my head. This bighorn sheep isn't called a "Ram" for nothing. I occasionally turned back to see the ram still coming closer to us so we continued running. At some point I stumbled hard on both knees and truly thought I was dead. I thought the ram would simply throw me over the cliff, but we managed to continue to run. Eventually the ram went down the cliff 
and back onto the trail in front of us. It just turned around and faced us and stood there. So Tara and I stood there- she was crying and I began to wet my pants. We stood there in horror- I was calling for help and Tara was trying to call 911 and the park rangers. The "Blue Nation" known as Centennial Wireless failed us, but who knows if any cellphone would have worked in the canyon.At this point I began gathering larger rocks for ammunition in case the ram came back for round 2. We just stood there against the wall until some other hikers came by and just stuck with them to get out of the canyon. I had to report our experience to the ranger who showed me a list of recent encounters with mountain lions, javelinas and other not-so-friendly animals. I would love to hike down to the bottom of the canyon someday, but after this experience it will require a man and a gun.
Later on our trip we saw multiple javelinas and tons of
deer who weren't afraid to wander within feet of us. I seriously felt like Dr. Doolittle or Brian Fellows from SNL. The good news is we are home safely and have many wild memories!
3 comments:
Angie! This is the best story I've heard yet this year! Absolutely hilarious, and terrifying! Ryan and I are thinking of going to the grand Canyon in May...perhaps we will bring our sling shots.
The looks on both of our faces were absolutely priceless- words can't even begin to descibe them. I'm also going to add that I wasn't too keen on the idea of going down a 4 foot wide trail with ice and snow on it with obvious huge cliffs. But thanks to you, Ang, we built some crazy, hilarious, scary memories/moments together. Here's to you my RAMbler friend, there's nothin' but love for ya!
Wow! Had I known that I would experience a life-threatening encounter with a ram, I might have jumped at the chance to wet my pants. That's a day you'll always remember...
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