Last weekend, my good friend Matt and I went to Yosemite in hopes of climbing Half Dome. My regular readers (Amanda and Jacob) know that I've dedicated lots of time in the past year to improving my health and physical fitness. I had been training extra hard for this hike, and looking forward to getting this under my belt before my 35th B-Day.
Alas, it was not to be. The plan was to get up extra early Sunday morning, and be out of the tent around 5am. We had made PB&J sandwiches for the hike, packed up our backpacks, laid out our clothes. We were ready. But Mother Nature had other plans. Around 2am it started raining, and by the time the alarm went off at 4:45, it was pouring down rain.
After a short discussion (IE..."we can't start this hike in the rain") we decided to try for more sleep, in hopes that the rain would stop shortly. Then I heard "something" attempting to break into our bear box. In some combination of stupidity and sleepiness, it honestly hadn't occurred to me that it was most likely a bear. Until I went outside, went down the 2 steps from the tent to the ground, and shined a flashlight directly into the face of the bear standing right in front of me.
In my mind my reaction was calm and collected. "Holy crap, it's a bear!" I quietly said. Except, I guess I said it loud enough to wake up some of our camping neighbors, since they thanked me for alerting them to the Bear's presence.
The moral of the story? If you are camping somewhere known to have a bear population, and you think you hear something breaking into your bear box, stay inside because it is a bear.
A month or so ago, I was invited to Jason and Alana's for dinner. Alana made the yummiest enchiladas I've ever had. The only thing I could do, after consuming, was beg for the recipe. Thanksfully, this wasn't a 'secret'.
