Bear Country...

If we needed a reminder that we no longer live in a state with nothing poisonous or dangerous we got that reminder on Sunday.  Back in Iowa there was rarely anything to worry about.  There were no poisonous spiders, snakes or dangerous animals (at least in our pocket of the state).  The only thing was the occasional wandering of a mountain lion following the streams.  That was rare.  Here though, things are very different.  There are snakes, dangerous ones, everywhere.  Copperheads and rattlers.  We can't let out dogs go out hiking without making them stick to the trail and not sniff under rocks anymore, etc...  My days of grabbing any snake that slithered my way are over.  Now I have to find out what kind it is before attempting it and that makes me nervous so I don't.

Sunday we went over to Shenandoah and hiked.  It was really hot (mid 90's) with high humidity so we waited to go later in the evening.  We went on our favorite trail which is a little dirt path through the woods.  I like this trail because though it's very heavily wooded, there are no pines, and the tree's that are there have no branches low, so you can see quite far through the forest.  This is important when there are wild animals lurking.

We were headed back to the car and something told me to "look up".  So, my head swung to the right and there she was... a big black bear staring back at me.  She was probably about 200 feet from us.  I know she knew we were there since we were talking and our dogs have tags on that jingle which was a good thing.  I alerted Shaun by saying, "Uh, there's a bear.... don't freak out".   We picked up the dogs and kept moving very slowly.  She didn't seem overly concerned with us.  About 10 steps later Shaun says, "what is THAT?"  Up ahead right on the trail was something else black but the way it was standing it almost looked like a big fluffy dog.  I realized it was another bear when another one popped right out in front of us.  They were 2 cubs.  So we were now in between the cubs and the mom.   Luckily the little cubs saw us and wandered off toward the mom.... we kept moving in the opposite direction.  I wanted SO bad to get a picture, but I was holding my dogs and didn't want to be eaten over a stupid photo.  So the one I got was with the cell phone and I didn't even try to adjust the settings.  It blurred so it looks like a big fat blob, which is what she looked like anyhow.  Hah. 

After seeing those 3 we saw 3 more.  Another mom and 2 cubs.  Must have been the night for bears. Luckily I didn't get eaten so that I could enjoy the sunset.  I think I'm going to invest in some bear spray just in case....