Bears Are Hard

Once again, cheat time. Rather than this post being an excerpt from da book, I am contributing my bear story to the Caravan Writers Collective. Yes, a bear story…who knew that could be a thing?

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My husband has always been big on camping. Me, not so much, but I try to be a team player.

He convinced me that camping at Yosemite would be a fun family vacation. Okay, we live in California, so it would only involve a five-hour-ish drive to One of the Greatest Places on the Planet.

So we packed up entirely too much stuff and hit the road. When we arrived, we quickly realized that the bear-repelling practices were draconian, but necessary.

Must scrub our truck from Everything. Arguably. Edible. Even lip balm. Done! Thankful that we obeyed the rules because the next morning, our truck’s windows had several large prints from the paws of bears searching for everything arguably edible. Go us! We felt so superior to the families who decided the rules were overkill and instead returned to a wrecked vehicle.

Must put all of our food in a “bear box.” Done! For the uninitiated, a bear box is simply a cabinet that has an entry method our ursine buddies don’t have the manual dexterity to overcome.

Must cope with the bear box police. While attempting to prepare dinner after all five of us were effing exhausted after the Four-Mile Hike (don’t ask, it was awful and frightening), the ursine patrol would “kindly” remind us we should treat the box as a refrigerator: get what we need, then secure its doors. Okay, we can do that. But sigh, can’t we just make dinner? Isn’t it hard enough to contend with decidedly low-tech ice chests in an attempt to keep our food from spoiling? In a crowded campsite, is a particularly bold bear gonna use his badass walk to steal our food?

Must cope with campsite neighbors who didn’t think bears are real. We obediently abided by the rules, but others left out food they were too full to finish: “OOPS!” Thankfully, the ursine patrol monitored the campgrounds after dark, sporting weapons to ensure the bears stayed the heck away from the intermittently irresponsible tourists.

I am very thankful we never had a bear encounter. I especially thankful because we came THIS close to having one at another campground. Because our daughter had to start school the next day, we had to leave early. Around midnight, all hell broke loose. But by the time of the incident, we were sleeping in our cozy beds and had access to an actual refrigerator and freezer.

Bears are hard.