We're home
I couldn't wait to get back and tell you all about our adventure.
This morning we went to Victory Basin to do some birding and walking. We've been there before and it's a great place full of wildlife, wilderness and not much traffic. We pulled over in a parking area near a fallen tree ("that's new"). As we got out we noticed a bird feeder in the tree over us and wondered if someone had actually been filling it. It's unusual to see bird feeders in wilderness areas. We decided to walk on the road instead of along one of the paths. About 15 minutes away from the car a truck pulled up and asked if that was our car in the lot. He then told us a "very big" black bear had come up from the river "looked like it was getting out of the car it was so close" and crossed the road. Umm, okay, that's a little unnerving. I've lived in areas with black bears my whole life, camped near them and seen quite a few. I know they aren't aggressive unless they feel threatened or there are cubs. After a little assessing we decided that we were better off continuing our walk to give the bear time to get where it was going. We would make plenty of human noise when we got near the car. Also when we heard the loud rustling off the side of the road a little while later. We walked for almost 2 hours, found a life bird and generally had fun. I mentally ran through all the things I knew about bears, told DW we needed to stay near each other (don't want the bear in-between us) and planned to use the car alarm if I needed to. We were feeling great until an elderly gentleman stopped and asked (again) if that was our car and had we lost a dog because he'd just seen a really big black dog crossing the road and going toward the car. I'm guessing he wasn't a local. We walked the rest of the way having very loud conversations with the bear, explaining that we liked bears but thought it best if we didn't all meet and lots of other silliness. I think there was even some singing in there (REM, we are a bit odd). We carefully made our way to the car and jumped in. We never did see the bear (I was a little disappointed once I was in the car) but it certainly made for an interesting and exhilarating morning
Did I mention that DW had an open bag of peanuts in her camera bag?
Now I'm going to catch-up on here and see what all of you have been up to
Morning!
