At noon today it was absolutely beautiful outside. I looked down at Cricket and asked her if she would prefer to enjoy it working on the new garden or going for a good long walk?
We hooked her up to her leash and headed down the street with the poop bag.
Off we went, headed toward the lake. I wanted to walk by the beach as I haven't been that way in quite a while. Once we got there, I decided to take the path along the shoreline from the beach to the marina. We got about 1/4 of the way around the point when I started to wonder if I might stumble across any of the "drunken town folk" that prefer these little off the beaten path places hidden by the little stretchs of woods we have here and there. I was trying to decide how I would handle the situation when I noticed a strange looking barefoot footprint in the mud on the path. I stopped there to stare at this rather large, weirdish-shaped print, and while multi-tasking my brain over this new puzzle and at the same time, the old one of how to handle a very possible meeting of a bum, I saw a branch a few feet above me snap back into place out of the corner of my eye.
I instantly imagined a bird as I whipped my head around to see what it was before it flew off and my heart jumped up the back of my throat. I was facing a black bear about 7 feet away.
He wasn't very big, and he looked pretty freaked out himself, but I wasn't wasting any time getting to know him. I think I said "Hello." and I casually sauntered away down the trail with my eyes on my caboose and made a lot of noise until I found the first way back up to the street above. I am sure Cricket never noticed him at all because if she did, she would certainly have barked. I am really glad she didn't as that could have turned a nice walk into a horrible, horrible day.
I saw quite a few other tracks along the trail as I put as much distance between us as I could, but those ones looked like bear tracks were supposed to look like. The first one I saw looked almost exactly like a human footprint but like the foot was very flat. There was no indentation like a human footprint has.
My heart has settled down now, but my hips are sore from the long walk.
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4 comments:
What can I say? When all else fails, be polite.
Cool!!!
Also, very glad that the bear was as freaked out and polite as you were, and decided to leave you alone, too.
I can't really figure out where this was...?
Okay, after rereading, I figured out where it was...
Isn't that a bad area for a bear to be?
Did you report the siting to any of the bear dealing with type people?
Hmmm...
Nutbar. Good thing you had Cricket, though, if the bear did decide to do anything, even the sharp sound of a little dog barking (which Cricket most certainly would do if a bear came at you!) may be enough to startle a bear and convince it to run the other way.
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