As I drove a remote stretch of Highway\n101, rain fell. Dusk was coming on. For over 50 miles, I’d followed a\nfancy orange vehicle, an SUV of some type. The driver kept a steady\npace and it was just us for miles and miles. On the radio, a\ndocumentary about the legendary SF band Moby Grape played and I\nlearned of their extraordinary story and heard psychedelic rock songs\nby them I’d never previously knew existed. They went well with rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The orange vehicle slowed down. I\nslowed down and shut off the radio. In the distance I saw a vague\nfigure in the middle of the oncoming lane…it was…it was…the\nshape of a coyote. I’ve had some coyote moments in recent months and\nI relished another one. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The orange vehicle pulled over to the\nshoulder and stopped. I stopped well behind it, in the middle of the\nroad. No one was behind me. The figure kept trotting down the middle\nof the oncoming lane. Coyotes don’t do that. They scoot across. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a dog, a large dog with big\nfloppy ears. As it came nearer I recognized it as a bloodhound. I\ncould see it was wearing a collar and tags and appeared to have an\narrow protruding from its neck. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What in the name of God? <\/em>Here we\ngo again, I thought, dog rescue time. They never really come at\nopportune moments. That’s why their called rescues and this one was\ngoing to require considerable effort. What exactly do you do with a\nbloodhound with an arrow in its neck and it’s a late Sunday afternoon\nand it’s raining and you are in the middle of nowhere? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The driver side door to the orange\nvehicle opened and a man emerged, a younger man, pretty hipster\nlooking in attire. The bloodhound went toward him. The man coaxed the\ndog closer to the vehicle. The bloodhound stepped into the car and\nbarely squeezed inside. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was utterly confused, dumbfounded. It\nseemed as if the dog and man already knew each other, but that was\nimpossible. The entire incident seemed more like a dream,\nhallucination or poem, one that was unfolding 20 yards in front of\nme. I accelerated my car forward and passed the orange vehicle at a\nslow speed because I wanted a look inside at the bloodhound. I had\nto! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The windows were tinted. I could see\nnothing. Nevertheless, I knew I had just witnessed a spectral rescue\nof a wounded bloodhound in rain, one I would never forget, and one I\nwould also never fathom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I turned on the radio. Moby Grape was\nstill doing their thing, and I headed down the road. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I drove a remote stretch of Highway 101, rain fell. Dusk was coming on. For over 50 miles, I’d followed a fancy orange vehicle, an SUV of some type. The driver kept a steady pace and it was just us for miles and miles. On the radio, a documentary about the legendary SF band […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5435,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5432\/revisions\/5435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}