Sleeping Owl

I never know what I'm going to find out on a bike ride. Today I got up at an insanely early hour, rode to the ferry terminal in Seattle, met up with a bunch of other Seattle Randonneurs and rode the South Hood Canal 200K,. Actually this ride is more like a 215 kilometers long and by the time I was back home I had 278 kilometers for the day. All day long the temperature was in the range that you'd find inside your refrigerator (or freezer) but it was beautiful along the canal, with great views of the mountains. But the absolute coolest thing was this owl. I was rolling along and zipped right by him and about half a second later my brain went "hey, was that an owl?" After making sure that there wasn't any traffic about to clonk me, I pulled a u-turn and and came back by the owl. The owl was sleeping peacefully on one of the posts supporting the guardrail. I could see it breathing and it stirred a bit when the camera beeped as I took this picture. Until today, I've never been this close to an owl in the wild. That silver thing in the foreground is the bell on my bike's right bar-end. I left the sleeping owl and continued on my ride.