Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Holy batphobia batman

Last week I mentioned how I am fascinated by bats. A couple of years ago I noticed that there were bats everywhere during the summer months. It was cool to watch as many as ten at a time flutter around above me as I ran.

I have a friend who worked at the local bird observatory and I asked him why it there seemed to be so many bats in the summer. He said that they were Mexican bats and they were migratory. So every summer I began to look forward to seeing the bats while I run.

This year the route I see them on the most is a run that takes me toward downtown Lake Jackson on Center Way. The bats seemed to be getting braver. Instead of flying ten to twenty feet above me, every so often one would circle a few feet in front of me. I thought it was cool and I never really even reacted to it until I read this article about the City of Lake Jackson finding rabid bats at a local apartment complex.

This morning Jakeb and I ran a new three mile route that he mapped out last night on Gmaps. After we hit the three mile mark, he stopped and went into the house and I ran on so I could get in a fourth mile. Right past the house a bat dove right in front of me. The experience was no longer enjoyable. It made me want to take another less bat infested route. It made me wish it was November.