Heart Tales: tis the season

About a week ago, we kicked off cabin season with our annual Memorial weekend trip to good old Hebgen Lake. I love this time of year! We headed up north with our little family, my parents, and my cousin Betty, her husband Eric and her son Jared. Jeannie and Janni even came and helped keep us company. It was such good weather, and we had a great time.

Before I blast you with pictures, let me tell you a little story.

My family has always brought the canoes up to the top of the creek and flow down the river and end up at our dock on the lake. It’s a fun trip and most like to do it. On the trip there are animals to see. You will always see plenty of duck and other small birds. Sometimes you see Great Blue Heron and Sandhill Crane. If you are lucky, you may get to see beaver or otter. So cool. This trip, my dad planned to float the river and Eric and Jared were going to go. I decided, lets take Hank and Drew and I will come help. So we made a trip of it.

I asked the others (Dad in the Kayak and Jared and Eric in the canoe) if we could go first. I wanted to the boys to see some wildlife. Once we got going and Hank calmed down we were having a great trip. Only occasionaly crashing into the bank of the creek. The water was high in a few places, but most places you could see the bottom. We were about 25 minutes into our trip (probably a 90 minute trip total) and we heard some loud branch cracking noises. Steve and I immediately looked at each other and said “what was that?, did you hear that?” It sounded different than the flapping of wings in the water when the ducks flew away. As I look toward the sound, I saw the perpetrator. I expected to see maybe a moose or a buffalo, but no. Less than 20 feet away from our canoe was a grizzly bear. We both yell, “It’s a bear” This was a big bear. We started trying to make noise and move the canoe away from the bear. Luckily, he didn’t want to meet up with us and he ran the opposite way. Whew. Close encounter. Don’t think I will be making any more trips up the creek this year.

Despite our close encounter, the kids had a great time. Drew insisted it was a nice bear. Probably a berenstain bear he said. Hank just fell asleep. OH, and no, I did not get a picture of the bear. I was too worried about keeping my babies away from him, so sorry!

I don’t know what you all think, but this doesn’t look like any berenstain bear to me.

Photo cred: Papa Bear from pinterest and Big boy over there came from westyellowstonenet.com

Hank finished his nap on the shore in the canoe.

Oh, and if you are wondering how the other two boats fared with the bear, well they didn’t meet him. They were too busy trying to keep their boats afloat (they only tipped twice, the kayak just once).

Now for picture overload, my favorite part!