Chuck's Almost Trip to Yellowstone's Hell

 

    Sometimes it makes no sense whatsoever to bring a cat with you when you are on tour, especially when you go to a place like Yellowstone National Park.

      Let me explain. 

      Yellowstone intersects three states--mostly Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It covers 3500 square miles and is fondly called a wilderness recreation area, home to wild animals like grizzly bears, wolves, bison, elk, and antelope. It has one of the largest petrified forests and over 250 waterfalls. Plus canyons, mountain ranges, and lakes. 

      All of that makes Yellowstone a dangerous place to visit. Especially with a cat. But when Chucky announced he wanted to see the very thing that makes this park so unique, well, we should have turned around and went home. 

      Yellowstone contains at least 10,000 thermal features including geysers, hot springs, mud spots and fumaroles. In short, these are like cracks into the inner earth allowing gasses and boiling liquids to reach the surface. 

      Touring this part of Yellowstone is no joke. If you wander off the boardwalk by accident, fall into a thermal feature, stick your finger into what appears to be an innocent puddle of water (which tourists have done) . . . well, let's just say you may not live to tell a happy story or any story at all.

    

   "Should we even take him (the rascal cat) with us?" I was having second thoughts even from the beginning. I know that most people think of Yellowstone and imagine subalpine forests, lodgepole pines,  and grassy meadows. It can be a beautiful place. But that's not where we were going.

    "All I can say is--you'll have to tell him," Dan declared.

    Needless to say, I chickened out. Chuck had his heart set on seeing the part of Yellowstone that some visitors described as going into the depths of hell or to put it more mildly into another world. So we packed him up, read him the riot act, and warned him to stay on the boardwalk at all times. 

      The first image we saw when we arrived at this dangerous part of Yellowstone sent the message loud and clear.

    At first I thought it was the bones of some animal, who had tried to escape some horrible fate, and had not made it.

    "Get a hold of yourself," Dan said. "It's 

just some branches."

     He was right, of course. 

   But the landscape only became bleaker with each step along the boardwalk that we took.

      We began to feel like, indeed, we'd landed on another planet. I was reminded of those early photos of the moon landings. Those stark ground photos which showed no signs of life. This landscape before us was different but equally eerie. No plants. A few dead trees. But no sign of life. 

      Of course, the only difference was this landscape had a kind of weird beauty caused by the variety of colors on the dead earth. Aquamarine to dark blue. Yellow. Orange. Red brown to burgundy. Even I got caught up in taking photos. A kind of beauty existed in the dead surroundings. 

     That is when it happened. And it was all my fault. I was supposed to be keeping my eye on Chuck. I took on the responsibility because Dan loves to take photos. I figured I'd be the logical one to make sure Chuck stayed on the boardwalk, the safe space. As we ambled along, I reasoned, there would be no birds, no animals to distract him. 

     What could he possibly find interesting out here in this barren landscape?

     I constantly underestimate this cat.

     As I looked around now and did not see him, my heart skipped a beat.

     Please God, no.

     I peered out over the landscape to see if somehow he'd wandered out there. Was is possible?

         

     I couldn't see him anywhere. No Chucky. 

     Of course, I imagined the worst. Somehow, without our noticing, he'd spotted something or smelled something and jumped off the boardwalk. He was down there somewhere. 

    Dan had another idea. "Maybe he crawled underneath the boardwalk." 

       

      Some cats like to be high and some cats prefer to be low. Chuck is one of those cats who prefer to be on ground level. We knelt down and looked underneath the boardwalk. No Chucky.

     

       I had to remain positive. "He usually listens to me . . ."

     

     "Except when he doesn't," Dan whispered.

     "I told him a thousand times not to get off this boardwalk."

    "We'll split up. You go this way. I'll retrace our steps and see if he's behind us."

     I raced ahead. The boardwalk curved to the left. The landscape remained much of the same, but with the fear of losing Chucky, I hardly noticed.

       I made promises to myself. If I find this darned rascal cat -- alive -- I promise I'll be the best mom in the world. I'll take such good care of him. I'll never let him out of my sight. From now on . . .

       An orange and white mass sat serenely on the boardwalk about 100 feet ahead of me.

      "Chucky," I screamed out his name. 

      There he was. As calm as can be. Staring out at the bleak landscape, as if under some kind of spell. He'd run up ahead and now saw something, who knows what out there, and was just sitting back, enthralled.

     Dan came up behind me. He pointed to something in the distance. 

"I think it's a hawk. Can you see it?"

     But I was too worked up to even want to see it. "That darned cat.

He'll be the death of me," I said to no one in particular because the 

    

     boys were distracted and were not listening. 

     "It's a red tailed hawk," Dan said to Chucky, who nodded. "They're common in the park. But not in this area. Good job of spotting."

      And, darn it, if that cat didn't start purring, imagining himself, no doubt, as some kind of hero. It didn't matter to him that he'd almost given me, his human mom, a heart attack. 

     Show off.

Chuck Has Run-In with Babysitter Hyena

My trip to Kenya, Africa, is a perfect example of Chuck in action because leave it to Chuck to always want to do or see the opposite of what I wanted to do or see.

For example, I had my list prepared of all the animals I wanted to take photos of--the big five--as they are known by the hunters of long ago: the buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, lion, and leopard.  Not to mention, of course, the giraffe and even the hippopotamus.  Nowhere on that list do you see the hyena. In fact, I would have gone in the other direction to avoid seeing the hyena.

Dirty and filthy animals, I thought.  Scraggly scavengers. 

 But no, Chuck wanted to see hyenas. 

Why, he wouldn’t say, but Chuck has a drawer in my house, where he stores pictures of all his secret desires, and sure enough he has a giant glossy of a hyena. 

Yuck.

And so it happened one day while we were riding along the dusty road in a preserve near Oltukai Lodge at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro that our driver, Stephen, knowing that Chuck was “into” hyenas, and being a “cat person” himself, pulled over to the side of the road and pointed. 

 “And there you have your first glimpse of a hyena,” Stephen said.

 Well, Chuck, who was catnapping in the safari vehicle, literally jumped up and stuck his cat nose out the open window to have a look.  Immediately his tail wagged back and forth.

Ugh, I thought to myself as I gazed at what looked like a spotted wrangled mass of beaten flesh lounging on the ground. “That is the ugliest animal I have ever seen.”

Chuck pretended to ignore my ill placed comments, but I was obviously ruining his moment.

“Now look to your right.” Stephen pointed to a gigantic boulder and there in the overly large crevice, two faces peeked out.  And they weren’t ugly at all.

 “Baby hyenas,” Stephen said, in explanation.  “In their lair.”

 Well,  that’s all Chuck needed to hear.  In one flying leap, he jumped out of the safari vehicle, intent on getting closer to those baby hyenas.

“Chuck, get back here. Are you crazy?” I screamed. “Those hyenas are wild animals.”

But Chuck didn’t listen.  At first he only seemed to want to watch them as they moved about, exploring. 

Then he seemed to prance faster toward the hyena lair, anxious for some kind of cat/hyena encounter. 

And then the unthinkable happened.

The ugly hyena, the one who appeared to be lounging over to the left, sprung into action. 

“Uh, oh,” Stephen said. “Not good. She’s the babysitter.  Her job is to protect the baby hyenas.  She sees Chuck as a threat.”

And sure enough, the babysitter’s beady eyes focused on Chuck, and she dropped into stalking position as she slowly moved forward. 

There was going to be a encounter all right, but it wasn’t going to be between Chuck and the kids. Oh, no.  And my poor Chuck didn’t stand a chance. After all, hyenas tangle with lions in their bid for food.

 “Chuck, to your left.  Look to your left.”

 Well, he must have heard the plea in my voice.  At the exact moment that the babysitter hyena broke into a run toward Chuck, my clever cat jumped sideways about four feet, then somehow propelled himself backwards, and scampered back to the safari vehicle. 

“Jump up, Chuck.  You can do it.  You can do it.”

The entire vehicle began to cheer behind me.

And either the motivational cheer or the hot breath of the babysitter hyena on Chuck’s neck inspired him, but Chuck leapt up into my arms, rattled, but safe and sound. 

“Whatever possessed you?” I asked him later when we were back in the cabin.  “You could have been their dinner tonight.”

Chuck blinked and didn’t say a word, but I noticed that he still had the glossy photo of the hyena, and I figured that even though he’d looked death squarely in the eye, he’d done what he’d had to do, what any cat would do-- to follow his dream and he wasn’t about to let any babysitter hyena stand in his way. 

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Chuck Has Scare by Baby Hippo at Mt. Kenya Animal Orphanage

We arrived at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club expecting to be pampered.  Chuck came for another reason entirely. He was not put off by the "falling into the pool" episode.  For full details, see blog post entitled: Chuck is Outsmarted by Bird at Mt. Kenya Safari Club. 

He’d heard about the orphanage, run by a foundation set up by the lovely Stefanie Powers, who’d had nine year relationship with William Holden, who’d founded the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. This orphanage was still in operation on the premises. It’s main mission was to rescue and treat injured animals from the wild and then return them back to their homes on the plains. How cool is that!

So, the trick was to sneak Chuck into the orphanage and let him walk around and see the animals without being seen himself. Not easy since although the orphanage was teeming with all sorts of animals roaming around, none of them were cats. House cats, I mean.

Luckily, security was not that tight at the orphanage.  We bought a ticket - a kind of donation to the project - and we wandered onto the grounds, casual like.  So getting in was easy.  Staying in with Chuck was the challenge, and once we got inside the orphanage, we definitely wanted to stay in! 

I can imagine what you’re thinking--animal orphanage.  The only frame of reference I had before I arrived were human orphanages--old smelly buildings as I imagined them to be from watching vintage black and white movies--but this orphanage was mostly an outside facility on lovely grounds with the animals allowed to roam free. As we meandered from one area of the orphanage to the other, we met the different animals who were recuperating here--in their natural habitat.  

It was too much for Chuck.  He did not appreciate being stuffed into my shoulder bag. He wanted out, but I thought allowing a house cat to wander free in an orphanage with wild animals recuperating was too dangerous. 

The day we were there wasn’t very crowded with people, but I couldn’t trust that Chuck wouldn’t wander off somewhere and have a close encounter with the wrong kind of wild animal -- a giant tortoise OR baby buffalo OR leopard OR . . .

Of course, that was exactly what happened. This fabulous orphanage is all about providing a natural habitat for the animal it is rehabilitating. 

Take, for instance, a baby hippo . . .

A baby hippo needs water.  The rivers, lakes and swamps in Kenya are filled with hippos.  You can see their heads pop up and down as you wander along almost any river in Kenya. But when you walk along that river, you are accompanied by a soldier who has a gun.  Hippos attack and kill more unarmed “pedestrians” than any other animal in Africa and are considered the most aggressive animal in Africa. You’ve heard the story--by the time you realize the hippo is emerging from the water to come and greet you, it’s already too late.  Hippos can outrun humans on land, moving at approximately nineteen miles per hour. 

We wandered down the lovely embankment to see the “baby,” lulled, perhaps, by the word “baby.” But, when adult hippos weigh on average between 3 to 4,000 pounds and the heaviest hippo was recorded at 9,000 pounds, we were in desperate need of some perspective. 

I’d heard that hippos were endangered.  They were regularly hunted for their meat and their canine ivory teeth. When left alone, they had the potential for living good long lives.  In fact, the oldest hippo in captivity had lived to the ripe old age of 61 in Germany. The average lifespan was between 40 -50 years old.

Chuck wanted to meet the baby hippo.  I quickly scanned the water in front of me, knowing some of these facts about hippos--I’m not a complete fool--but there was nothing.  Some grasses.  Some mud.  A stream in front of us.  No hippo.  But I should have scooped Chuck up and called an end to the expedition. Sometimes it’s best to follow your extincts.

I didn’t do that.  I continued to meander with Chuck along the bank. Still no hippo.

We went a bit further, and I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe they’d taken him/her (the baby hippo) to the doctor. Maybe there was no baby hippo.  Maybe he’d gone on vacation?

But he was there all right. Out of nowhere he popped up in front of us. Popped right out of the water, like a jack in the box. 

I jumped back away from the water.  Chuck stood here, paralyzed it seemed to me. He stared at that hippo. Sure, technically we were looking at a hippo baby, but that baby was a big baby. What I would call a giant baby.  

Very slowly, I crouched down and reached out.  My intention was to put my hand on Chuck who was in front of me on the ground and pull him toward me.  Pick Chuck up and then move backwards.  Kind of “moonwalk” backwards.

But it all happened at once. The hippo moved toward us.  Then, unexpectedly, he opened his mouth. YIKES.

“The bigger to eat you with, my dear,” the big bad wolf says to Little Red Riding Hood, intending to eat her, of course. 

That line ran through my mind at the exact moment that Chuck meowed IN FEAR because that line was probably running through his mind, too. 

Now, Chuck’s a chunker but no match for the baby hippo. Chuck would be a small appetizer. 

I’m not so sure if Chuck jumped into my arms or I lifted him up, but I swirled around and scampered up the embankment as fast as humanly possible away from the baby hippo.

And I never looked back.

One of the lovely attendants who wander around the grounds and help guide you and answer questions, shot me a big smile, then looked concerned when she read the PANICKED expression on my face and called out, “Is everything all right?”

“Perfect,” I shouted, perhaps a bit too loudly.

“Is that a cat?” I heard her ask, her voice wallowing in the air, in the distance now, as I kept on heading for the exit.

Excuse me. I’m not usually a rude person, but in this particular instance, I didn’t bother to reply. 

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