“Have you ever thought of building a
still out here?” was the first question I asked my brother-in-law.
But it is a very nice cabin, built
completely by hand, which is why I refer to my brother- and
sister-in-law as Mr. and Mrs. Grizzly. We spent the day hiking
around the 25-acre-mountain lot where Mr. Grizzly pointed out the
decades-old bear trail and all of the rocks bears had recently turned
over looking for grub. Or in this case, grub worms.
Later that night, Mr. Grizzly started
grilling some sausage. “Supposedly bears can smell grilled
hamburger meat from two miles away,” he noted.
I glanced all around. “And how far
away can they smell grilled sausage?”
“That’s five miles.”
Luckily we didn't encounter any bears.
That’s especially lucky because the only restroom was an outhouse
necessarily situated some running distance from the cabin.
Last weekend, St. Pauli Girl and I
returned by ourselves to New Mexico where we had rented a secluded
cabin on the side of a mountain. A notice on the door of the cabin
warned about high bear activity in the area. The flyer included a
cute cartoon picture of a smiling bear wearing a chef's hat and
grilling hamburgers, with a warning underneath that read: “The
real bear will not look like this.”
Thank you! Yes, we were actually
expecting him to wear a tie and green hat. If you want to warn
people of danger, a cartoon may not be the best way to go. This would have been far more appropriate.
That notice, cute as it was, pretty
much ruined my weekend as I spent the rest of the time worrying about
bears. I wandered around the outside of the cabin looking for
evidence of bears, just like Mr. Grizzly had taught me. Every time I
entered a different room I plotted my escape, depending on where the
bear might come from. And the fact the front door was a simple
sliding glass door didn't make me feel any safer.
“Do you think we should close the
curtains on the door?” I asked St. Pauli Girl.
“No, why?”
“If the bear can see inside, he may
be more likely to break in. I mean, what if he smells the coffee?”
I then pointed out if we wanted to use
the hot tub on the deck, we should do it before we grill the steaks.
“I bet they can smell prime rib eye from ten miles.”
We did make use of the hot tub, but I
didn't enjoy it very much. I was on the lookout for bears.
“Will you stop it and just relax,”
St. Pauli Girl said at one point, noticing I looked ready to bolt at
the slightest rustling through the pines.
“I think the only thing worse than
being eaten by a bear would be getting drowned by a bear,” I said.
“Heck, if he tossed some carrots and onions in first, he could just
turn this hot tub into a big stew pot.”
But once again we survived the weekend
with no bear sightings. On the last day, we wandered around the
property a bit. On the hill behind the cabin, I noticed a sign that
marked the boundary of the national forest.
“Oh I'm so stupid,” I said slapping
my forehead.
“What?”
“This is a national forest, and the
government is shut down. The bears are on furlough.”
