Day 7.026: That stinks!

One of the things I've been afraid of since I started running in the pre-dawn darkness is surprising a skunk. Skunks are reasonably common, but rarely seen - except as roadkill and then usually only identifiable by the smell.  I saw one once, round the corner from our NY home, but only from the safety of a car.

This morning, I glanced to see what was rustling on the other side of a chain-link fence and saw - just a couple of feet away - the dreaded creature.

I backed up, got my phone out and snapped some pictures (the best I could get with my iPhone in the dark), while walking down to the end of the fence to get a clearer shot.

In that last picture, he was clearly heading straight for me, so I moved to alert him to my presence - I did not want to surprise him at close quarters - and he wandered off in the other direction with his tail reassuringly lowered.

So that was quite cool.

It had just started to snow and within a few moments it was a full-on snowstorm and the wind was whipping the "flakes" (more like mini-icy-shuriken) into my face. Sadly I had to cut my run short to a mere 6.5 miles instead of 10. Yeah that pretty much stinks.