Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Da Bears

Who needs to write about giant moths on screen doors when you can write about bears breaking into campsites?!

Joe and Jonathan took Patrick, Eli, and Amelia camping last night - Amelia's FIRST EVER camping trip! (Patrick and Eli have both been as babies and/or toddlers). They went up to some property that Jonathan's family owns in San Isabel - it has cabins nearby so it's not exactly the wilderness, but it's not like they were camping in a suburban backyard. They fished, cooked hot dogs over the fire, and eventually got the kids to bed around 10 p.m. only to be woken up by an unusual noise around 2 a.m.  Both Joe and Jonathan woke up, grabbed flashlights, and were unhappily surprised to find the noise was a large black bear who broke out our car window to get a bag of chips! The window was cracked and it stuck its paws in, then pulled backwards and shattered the window onto the ground. The bear grabbed the chips and lumbered away and sat on one of the nearby cabin's back patio, enjoying his snack, while Joe and Jonathan waited to see what it would do. Well, after waiting and waiting it never left! If they came closer it got huffy and started "whoomph"ing at them and bounced on its paws off the ground... that sounds more like a bear that's used to humans and used to getting its way, not one that will amble away in peace! Since the car could no longer be secured (and by then Eli and Patrick had woken up, so Amelia was the only one of the entire crew sleeping) they decided to head home. It was 4 a.m. Once home, everyone clambered into bed reeking of campfire smoke and a bit delirious at the unusual hour, and then had a nice lie-in this morning to compensate.

The scene of the crime

 Besides muddy prints there's a bit of bear fur stuck the the door!

 All shattered on the inside

We now have a broken window (to be replaced tomorrow) and a story that will live on forever - the camping trip where a bear broke in!

I'd say Joe is racking up some serious life lessons this summer!
1) Don't put containers of liquid next to open laptops (or any technology, really)
2) Call before you dig (he hit the gas line during while digging out the drainage pipes, there were about 11 emergency vehicles at our house!)
3) Roll up all car windows when camping

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