The Bear, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

There’d been signs saying there were black bears in the area along the Juan de Fuca trail and that you should use caution… and, if you happened to encounter one, what you should do. We read them, and hoped we didn’t have to use them. On our hike up from Botanical Beach we noticed a couple of things… one, a very fresh bear paw print, and two, a fairly sizable and newish looking pile of bear poo. These had us slightly concerned and we quickened our pace toward the parking area. Mary, after seeing the paw print, said she preferred not to see a bear along the trail, but wouldn’t mind seeing one while we were driving in the car.

Cut to the drive out of the park and back up along the small two lane highway toward Victoria… Karen in the passenger seat, Weston on her lap, Mary and Martin in the back seat. Suddenly Karen says… Holy crap, there’s a bear. We all looked to the left and then pandemonium broke out in the car. Everyone was yelling… “open the window, take a picture, hurry, get the camera, there he goes, open the window, I can’t open the window I have the dog, take the dog, I can’t get the camera out of the case with the dog on my lap, open the window, take the dog, damn my camera battery is low and the camera is too slow, I just got the reflection in the window, he’s right there on the side of the car now, what’s in his mouth, I think it’s a fish, open the window, there he goes, did you get him, I think my pictures are blurry, my camera battery is going dead, open the window, he’s gone, I can’t believe we just saw a bear, no one is going to believe us because we didn’t get a picture, you should have opened the window, I couldn’t because I had the dog, how did yours turn out, I think that blur is the bear, you should have opened the window, I couldn’t open the window I had the dog, I should have given you the camera, I can’t believe we just saw a bear, that is so cool, I’ve never seen a bear… wow”.

Mary got the best picture, and this is it. The black blur in the center is the bear. Really. We all saw him.