The bear necessities
Yesterday was spent mostly on the road with my dad, as we had a training session up in Anchorage. This necessitated leaving at 4:30 am. This resulted in a very, very, very sleepy Lessa.
Fortunately, Papa – more awake and alert, though half blind, of course – was driving and awake enough to hit the breaks about 5 miles from my house, as for the first time in the 30 years I’ve lived in Alaska….
I saw a BEAR that wasn’t in a zoo. A real. live. AMBLING ACROSS THE STREET in front of our car BROWN BEAR! Picture? of COURSE I didn’t get a damn picture, because I didn’t have my camera out or close enough to get quick access and he was gone and we were passed by then…
Oh, and? it was about 1/2Â a mile from where The Boy was having a schools out party with his friends later in the day.
Gulp.
So, when we called folks at a reasonable hour to let them know we were safe in anchorage (blah blah blah oh and…) I let Nana know, and heard her pout because 1 – she didn’t get to see it and 2 – I didn’t have my camera out. Bad Lessa!
Then! After hours of training in uncomfortable seats, Papa and I headed back home about 3:30pm. We stopped for an earlyish dinner at Girdwood and then started the long drive home, doing our best to dodge the hooligan fishermen and women and kids who kept walking across the road in front of the blind man driving the van. Idiots.
(What, you don’t let your half blind father drive ya around? Got no sense of adventure, do ya?! Wuss.)
Round about Cooper Landing, we passed a group of cars with folks out with their cameras, I whipped my head to the other side just in time to see ANOTHER DAMN BEAR as we flashed by. This one was a blackie, sitting on the hill. Color me stunned (and still, cameraless. DAMMIT i’m outa PRACTICE or something!!)
I don’t see any bears at all (cept in a zoo) for the WHOLE TIME I’ve lived in Alaska, almost 30 years, and I see TWO IN THE SAME DAY?!? Must be because my camera wasn’t as handy as it is most times… ya think?
So that’s MY latest adventure. What’s yours?
