50. Hold Still
My mom and I went hiking in the foothills outside of town. We were maybe 15 minutes from town, if that. It was middle of the day and we were walking along a little creek when my mom told me to hold really still. When I stopped, I noted that every single animal was dead quiet, including the birds. I tried to ask my mom what was going on and she just held her finger to her lips.
She then whispered to me that we needed to walk backward very slowly and not make any quick movements. After about five minutes of this, we turn around and speed walk back to the car. We get in the car and I ask my mom what happened. She said that we were being stalked by a mountain lion. I was too busy having fun to have noticed the fresh tracks leading away from the water into the trees. If my mom hadn’t noticed the tracks and the silence, we probably wouldn’t have made it out of there.