That sounds like a funny headline. We can laugh now if we want but it’s actually kind of serious. Here is the story, as told by my parents. I made minor edits to context is all.
Tuesday, we wrapped up a bunch of errands and got ready to go camping for a couple of days at Foy Lake. It took until mid-afternoon to get there and get set up. The kids and Jim went fishing that evening and rode Scott’s CRF50 and shot their bows and arrows at the target and in general had a good time.
The excitement level picked up a bit that evening at about 9 when we were all ready to go to bed. Jim stepped out for a minute and promptly stepped right back in the trailer, saying something to the effect, “Crap-a-mighty, there’s a bear out there!” It turned out to be a fairly good sized black bear. He wandered all over camp completely unconcerned about the flashlight or the porch light on the trailer and spent most of the time trying to get in the trailer. He stood up and looked in the top bunk window where Scott was and Scott said, “That bear is looking in my window,” but we thought he was imagining things at that point. It only took 10 seconds longer for us to realize Scott wasn’t making anything up when the bear went around the corner and started investigating the bathroom window, where Jim happened to be. We hurried and closed all the windows, Jim grabbed the gun (unfortunately we didn’t have the bear sized one), and we started yelling and banging on things to scare it away. He wasn’t a bit afraid of any noise we could produce, except the eventual gun shot to scare him away. That worked for a few minutes and then he was back again. This time Jim shot right over his head and he ran away for the rest of the night, we think. I certainly didn’t sleep. Lydia slept through the whole commotion, amazingly, and Scott refused to sleep in the top bunk. He slept on the floor in the center of the trailer, not a bad position.
We debated whether to stay another night, not wanting to spend it all wide awake, but figured it was all a fluke thing the next day and decided to stay for the meals anyway and maybe then go home. So we went on a little hike starting up the Robertson Pasture trail and then looping back to the camp. The boys shot their arrows at imaginary beasts all along the way and Lydia walked “by myself” the whole way. We were lucky to have Fred along, thinking back to the rest of the day’s events. We spent the rest of the morning around camp riding the CRF50, playing in the meadow, mud puddle, etc.
About mid-afternoon, Jim, Scott and Dallin took the CRF50 and their fishing poles down to the lake to try that out. Fred, who loves to lick fish, went with them. Tim, Lydia and I stayed in the trailer where we’d been coloring pictures earlier. Tim decided to go outside and get his shoes which were by the mud puddle, the source of several sets of “tar baby” toes!
Tim saw the bear probably as soon as he stepped out the door. I heard him say, “Grandma, there’s a bear out here,” and I jumped to the door and grabbed him back in. The bear couldn’t have been more than six feet away. I had time to shut the screen door, but couldn’t get the main door unlatched from its open position. We started yelling and screaming, but, as before, the bear was not worried about noise. He acted like he was headed right in the door. I grabbed the gun again from the closet, but was too rattled to realize you had to take the safety off before you could cock it. In the seconds I took to figure it out, I managed to jam it and had to eject two of the three bullets left in it. So there I was with bear paws on the screen door and a too-small gun with one bullet.
In the meantime, Jim had heard all the commotion and came racing back on the CRF50, which goes pretty fast after all! When the bear heard the motorcycle, he moved away from the door over by the pickup and then into the bushes. Fred chased it all over the hillside for the ten minutes it took us to throw everything in the pickup, hook up the trailer and leave. Had Fred stayed at camp, the bear probably wouldn’t have come in. Jim said he had an uneasy feeling all day that it was up on the hill watching our camp. We put Fred in the pickup at night so he wouldn’t chase cows and bark all night, but probably not any more! He will be an outside dog.
Late Thursday afternoon, I realized that I hadn’t seen Scott’s glasses for a long time. After searching the house and trailer, we decided they must have been on the table outside the trailer and got knocked off in the grass. So later that evening, we took a little trip (with the big gun!) to find his glasses and we did, amazingly. We also checked out a camp next to us where a bunch of tents had been left, but no one was there. The DWR had a bear trap set there, but no bear.
On the way home, we ran into the DWR and a local hunter who has dogs. They had a bear treed just off the road aways which probably was the culprit. We talked with them awhile and learned more of the story. Earlier in the spring, two cows had drowned in Foy Lake and the bears discovered them and were eating off the carcasses. When somebody finally took care of the problem by hauling off the cows and burying them, one bear left the area, but this one came back and started bothering campers. It pretty well trashed the site next to us. This is where I am a bit resentful. I never would have considered camping in a known problem area, especially with all those children. Where were the warning signs?
Poor Tim. He said before he didn’t know that bears were real, but now he knows they are. Anyway, we have the souvenir paw prints on the side of the trailer and we hope the bear is deceased. I still wish I’d shot it!
