GI and I were driving out last night to see (yet another) couch from craig's list and as we were driving down the mountain we clearly both saw a sleek fast moving silhouette move across the road. Big, fluid, tail swishing, it knew we were coming and avoided us with a skill that was both obvious but hard to describe.

As big as a Tiger... wow! And two blocks from our house. I'm now glad we have a big fence and gates!

BTW: Mountain Lion = Cougar

And we saw this sign today going walking on the trails up here.

Dude... How cool is that?!

And... oh no... GI's on another furniture rampage acquisition?

hahahahah (laughing at you)

I would love to see a mountain lion in the "wild"!! Best I have seen is a bob cat.

I remember reading a "survival" guide many decades ago... there was an interesting and potentially useful entry about what to do if you run into a bear in the woods. The entry on Cougars' while interesting was slightly less useful.

For you see in those days, the Cougars were less likely to be seen in the areas near the city, and out in the areas I hiked were much more likely to vanish into the brush than to remain in an area that humans were in.  So for all my local hikes, I had seen many signs of cougars (paw prints; scrapes) only once did I see/hear movement that I thought might be a cougar - so the 'advice' in the book resonated with me:

<rough from memory> Cougars are an extremely beautiful and graceful animal that are seldom seen in the wilderness. They will know you are present long before you could ever detect them and will silently move away.  They rarely attack humans. 

They are however fierce predators and lay in ambush for their prey when hunting. Further, unlike bears, they are almost impossible to scare off once they have their sight on you. So, if you see one in the wild you should consider you self abnormally lucky.  If, however,  it should choose to attack you should consider yourself an unfortunate statistic.

That said, I do love the advice on the sign Marty.... If attacked by all means do fight back

'Five Cougars thanks!'

No thanks!

always go for the eyes!