The Puma Strikes ... a debacle

At 11:30 pm on Tuesday night I spread my sleeping bag out and hit the sack. It was a pretty good night for sleeping as the road was deserted, the temperature was mild, and I was pretty tired. When I got up at 5:45 there was only one shoe next to my head ... the shoe where I had stuffed the car keys was gone. You can imagine the vitriol that spilled from my mouth.
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> After about 20 minutes of freaking out I got up and searched for the other shoe. (Needless to say my wallet with the AAA card, my spare shoes, my iPhone, and everything else was locked in the car.) Two hours later I gave up, flagged down a car, which thankfully took me to a dude ranch two miles away. Those generous folks at the Peaceful Valley Ranch fed me, and let me use the phone to call Selden, AAA, and the rental car agency. Selden was eventually able to wrangle the VIN number, and AAA sent up a locksmith from Boulder.
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> The locksmith arrived several hours later, and his key opened up the trunk, which meant spare shoes! At this point the Boulder Canyon police showed up because my car had been tagged as abandoned. The locksmith could not get the car started because he needed to verify the code online and there was no service in this very remote area where I had pulled over. So, he went 30 miles to the nearest town to finish the job. We estimated he would be back in 75 minutes, and so the policemen and I started to extend the hunt for the shoe, and eventually we found it 3/4 mile away. One of the cops thought he saw a Puma track. The big cat chewed and ate the laces, however the keys and new Altra running shoe was intact.
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> Pretty amazing adventure.
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