L'Invasione dell'Orso

During the guys’ week, we went camping on a beautiful lake in the White Mountains called Russell Pond. It rained a fair amount while we were there, but this did not in any way spoil the incredible beauty of the spot. The water was warm, there was a nice view, and across the lake there was a rope swing and a large rock that was perfect for swimming from. On one side of it the lake was shallow and sandy, on another side it was a gradual drop-off from the rock, and on another side there was an immediate drop-off. (The fourth and final side was shallow and slimy, but we won’t dwell on that thought.) Only a short path through a stretch of woods divided the campsite from the lake. And it was on this path that we first saw.......the bear.

Dan was the first to spot him. We had just got back from getting our dinner at McDonald’s, and Adam was having a meeting. When he was about halfway through his message, Dan quietly announced, "There’s a bear by the lake." We glanced briefly over at the bear and then quietly turned and listened to the rest of Adam’s meeting. End of story.

Well, actually, that’s not quite what happened. After Dan mentioned the bear, we all—even Adam—were distracted. Gerry went to get the park ranger because he had heard they were trying to scare the bears into being afraid of humans (actually, we had all heard; they had been firing shotguns the better part of the afternoon). While he was gone the bear walked along the edge of the lake a couple times, and we yelled and barked and whistled at him. This didn’t bother him a bit. He began to ever so slowly saunter up the path toward our campsite. Dan, being the oldest and wisest person present, instructed us all to back up the path away from the campsite and the bear, and we complied. It crept nearer, we crept farther. Finally the bear reached the picnic table, and sniffing slowly along it, came to a McDonald’s bag that contained two cheeseburgers belonging to Andrew Bean. It then grabbed this bag in its mouth and ran into the woods with it. After a few minutes of excitement, and then a few minutes after that of repeated gunshots in the woods ("bear scare", the ranger called it), and then a few more minutes of excitement, we settled down by the fire again and Adam tried to finish his meeting. He did succeed, but without the rapt attention he had received in the first half. Talk about a distraction! How many other people do you know who have had their meetings interrupted by a bear?

I drove a standard again today. I’m getting better: I only stalled once, and that was when Daddy was telling me to play with the clutch or something. At any rate, the light in front of me was still red and I got the engine started before the light turned green.

My modem has stopped working again. I think I'll have to buy a new one. Sigh. I wrote out this whole post on my computer on MS Word, and then found that I couldn't connect to the web. Consequently, I had to copy this to CD and go ALL the way down to the kitchen and use that computer. There should be a law against fickle technology.