1. A bear's paw is friggin huge.
2. My family is friggin crazy.
There is no other word for it. My family is crazy. We do crazy stuff, for crazy reasons, at crazy times. And sometimes crazy things happen to us; and some of these things are worth sharing. So this Quirky Monday is not necessarily about a quirk--it's story time.
About six years ago, my family decided visited Yellowstone. And we drove. Eight of us in an SUV for five hours. GAG!!!! Don't get me wrong, it's great spend time with my family, but when there are eight people in a car for five hours, things get hairy. Or funny. Or both. Like this:
While we were driving to Yellowstone, we decided to take a detour through Bear Country. Guys, this is a real, legit place. It's got bears wandering around this big open area and you can drive your car right past them and see them up close. I'm not kidding. It's sipic!
One rule they have there, though, is that you can't stop your car. They don't exactly explain why, but it there on the entrance sign "Stay in your vehicle. Don't stop your vehicle. Don't feed the Bears." Yes, it literally says "Don't Feed The Bear" Only there's no Winnie-the Pooh behind this sign.
Now before I go on, I have to explain two quick things. One, my mom loves taking pictures. Of everything. Especially on vacations. Family photos, solo photos, landscape photos, the works. Not that I think this is a bad idea. I love seeing these photos later. But I hate posing for them. And she still insists on taking them, so we smile and get it over with.
The second thing you have to understand is that at the time my youngest brothers were eight. Very cute; very excitable; very --loud? Yes, loud they were loud. They still are loud. And we were in a car. This will make sense, I promise.
Anyway, we got into the park and drove around. There were bears--brown bears, black bears, cubs, the works.
My mom was snapping pictures, as was my sister, and my twin brothers were in the back of the car with their noses pressed to the windows and my other two brothers were pushing against me and my sister to see out the window.
And I don't exactly remember the details, but we stopped the car so my mom could roll down the window an snap a picture of two little cubs. This one, actually:
What we didn't see was the other bear on the other side of the car.
Our car that was no longer moving.
So the bear went up on its back legs put its front paws on the car...
And ended up nose to nose with my eight year old brother.
Cue reaction: A very loud "ohmygosh!!!!" And a mile-jump-in-the-air-and-eyes-popping-out-of-the-head kind of noise.
And laughter from the rest of us.
So yes. My family's nuts. We encounter bears on our car--but we get great pics because of it!
Also, if a sign says don't stop your car, then don't stop your car--you could end up nose to nose with a bear.
No comments:
Post a Comment