Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Adventures of a Nature Girl

Remember a few weeks ago when I saw not one, but two bears? Well, I was just beside myself with excitement. And ever since then I've kept my eyes peeled and my fingers crossed hoping to see another one.

Call me crazy, but I happen to think they're amazing creatures and am completely fascinated by them.

So a couple of weekends ago, John and I were up in the mountains for our anniversary and we were hiking a really cool prayer trail and all of the sudden we start hearing some, ummm, interesting sounds. We both got really quiet and looked wide-eyed at each other. It sounded like something BIG was moving through the nearby trees. Twigs were snapping like crazy, and every couple of minutes we'd hear some low growling noises.

I was beside myself with excitment. I looked at John and said, "THAT has GOT to be a bear. Oh. My. Gosh. We're gonna see ANOTHER bear. C'mon!" The noise was coming from several hundred feet away, and there was a property fence separating us from the noise, which probably explains my brazenness. We quietly inched our way up to the fence with our eyes trained in the direction of the twig-snapping and tree swayin'. My heart was racing, and I was rehearsing in my head all the things one should do if one sees a bear, and seriously, I was giddy with excitement.

Finally, John saw something large and brown moving into the clearing. He pointed for me to look, and then I saw it: a long, brown tail swishing back and forth. And as I'm thinking in my head, "Wait a minute, bears don't have tails like that", I hear the growl again. Only it's not a growl, it's a MOO! It was a stinkin' COW!

A COW!!! It's funny now, but I was incredibly disappointed at the time.

So we were walking back to our cabin, and laughing about that cow, and just enjoying the beauty of a summer day, and all of the sudden I unintentionally stepped over a snake, and that startled the snake which jumped and scared the daylights out of me. I jumped, and screamed, did a little jig, then ran for my life for the cabin. I am terrified of snakes. John said it was only a little one. It really didn't help that he was laughing when he told me.

In retrospect, it's probably good I didn't see a bear that day. I couldn't even handle the snake.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh - I would have just had a heart attack if I'd stepped over a snake - actually, I could have an attack just now thinking about it! Snakes are not a creature I like at all - the only good ones in my book are dead ones (my hubby keeps trying to instill in me that there are 'good' ones out there that keep the bad away. Just keep them all away from me please!

Holly said...

Hilarious! Coming from Texas, I have seen plenty of snakes...and nearly stepped on them, but...they are NOT my friends.

I would like to see a bear, too. My cousins in a nearby neighborhood had one on their back porch.

Have a wonderful day!
In Him,
Holly

Anonymous said...

I love seeing bears too! We were in Idaho 12 years, and the only bears we saw were in Canada--but one was a grizzly! Exciting, but I was glad I was looking at it through my video camera on zoom, not close up.
I did see a young moose in the Wal Mart parking lot once. Not many people can say that! I do miss the wildlife of the Northwest.
:)
Kecia
PS It's VBS week and our house is on the market. I'm hoping to start my blog next week!

Robin Green said...

I just had a snake incident myself--yuck. How fun to see bears in the wild, except when they turn out to be cows, of course.

Lindsay said...

You're a wonderful storyteller, Mer. I feel as though I was right there.

Lindsay