Being "Bear Aware"

Molly: What a day.  I woke up this morning to the phone ringing and Diva Number One MIA.  It was about 7:40 and the front desk told me that our Yellowstone Tour Guide was waiting for us downstairs.  In my cute PJ pants and sweatshirt, let’s be honest, I was nowhere near ready to deal with this crisis hop on a bus for an all-day tour.  I frantically called Diva 1 to see if she knew what was going on.  A minute later she barges into the room and tell me that we were supposed to go on a tour but she just doesn’t think that we can do it.  I decided that was a good moment to keep my mouth shut and crawl back under the covers. 

Anyway, I didn’t sleep for long.  Anne suggested I get a shower so that if we did sign up for something early I would be ready.  I agreed and went on into the bathroom.  About five minutes later she is shouting “BEAR! MOLLY YOU HAVE TO COME SEE THIS BEAR.” (to your right is said bear, crossing the road) So my half-conditioned hair and I got out of the shower to go see it.  I told Anne she should have bought me some bear spray, but seeing as the bear was still 300 yards away, she said no.  After my shower was completed, the bear had migrated 200 yards CLOSER to us.  I bet she’s reconsidering that bear spray now!  She looked at the bear out the window and pointed to me and informed the bear that he could have me for breakfast.  She is a terrible person. 

We had breakfast and I went out to get a closer view of the bear (to your right in between the two trees), which turned out to be a cub but I swear that thing definitely looked like an enormous grizzly.  Really though.  So I start talking to an employee who is not super reassuring about bear safety.  We really need to invest in some bear spray at this point.

So we call base camp and get my appointment set up to do the zipline.  I should have known something was wrong when she told Mom that it was a “beautiful day.”  It’s 30, snowing, freezing, and cloudy.  And there are bears in the vicinity.  Beautiful day? I think not.  And to make me feel better, Anne decides to tell me how I’m going to have to wear a helmet that someone else has worn (this is like the reason I hate bowling, the shoes.) and that I probably will get lice.  What a wonderful person.  Again, Dad, I’m going to need to be in therapy, (or money for more shoes, and maybe my own helmet!)

So we go to the store before the zipline and I finally break down Anne enough to buy me some bear spray. It’s wonderful because it has a bear safety manual attached and it lasts for five years.  I am so so happy.  I can now use it to threaten Anne when she is getting a little too sassy. 

So I did the zipline and it was basically the best experience of my life.  In true diva fashion, there were supposed to be 9 people and 3 guides on the tour.

However, no one showed up but me.  I told them I could reschedule, but they said it was great so it was just Diva Number Two and three guides hiking up the trails in the snow.  I now love hiking, it’s going to be my favorite new pastime.  I really really like it.  Who ever would have thought that that series of words would come out of my mouth?  Not Diva 1.   But it’s great, I want to hike all the time.  So I get halfway up the mountain and we zip down the first line and then we hike some more and get to the second line.  After the second line you hike a little more and then zip down one more line.  BUT, since I was the only person on the tour today, they said that if I wanted to hike back up the mountain and zip down 2 and 3 again we could.  Obviously I said yes.  It was great, I went upside down for the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th ones.  Anne would have been petrified (the tram in Jackson took 15 years off her life already, we wouldn’t want her to be a negative age, seeing as she is only 29 as it is.)  So we hiked back down and I met Diva 1 at the bottom.  She looked thrilled.  Below is a photo of me doing the zipline....this was taken right as I came down from riding upside down.  So much fun.

After this we had lunch and Anne swam her heart out in the freezing cold.  I am now uploading our photos and I think a nap is in my near future.  You know, I had to wake up early to take care of Anne’s faux pas with the Yellowstone guide.  Always looking after her; this is my life. 

Unfortunately, we are leaving a day early tomorrow.  We maybe didn’t look at our trip information and now we realized it was going to be 13 hours from here to Seattle, and Lord knows with all our silly stops it would be 15 or 16 hours, so we are going to split it in half and try and make it to Spokane by tomorrow night.  I’m sad to leave the beautiful snow covered mountains, but I’m going to college, so hopefully I'll be spending a good amount of time in Tahoe this winter!

Anne: Oh, dear. I have created a slight faux pas…a little something short of a major international incident, but I am still very embarrassed. While you-know-who was still enjoying her REM sleep, I had been up, had a shower and gone to the car to get our phone chargers that we couldn’t find in the dark last night. When I walked back into the hotel, I saw the desk clerk and a rather handsome gentleman staring straight at me. My first thought was, “Oh, no, what has Molly done?” especially when he knew my name. But she was still asleep because the desk clerk told me she had woken her up. The man was there to pick us up for our ALL DAY tour of Yellowstone Park. Our itinerary for the next three days was still home in the printer, and the basecamp desk was closed when we got in last night so I couldn’t find out what we were suppose to do today. Obviously, it was the ALL DAY tour of Yellowstone. The thought of going back to Old Faithful one more time was just more than I could handle. It is still cold outside and we still don’t have clothes warm enough to sit in the snow this time. I gave him a tip and sent him on his way without us. I know the other people on the tour were disappointed to learn that the divas were going to be MIA today. It was a rather large bus, so I’m sure there were lots of people to be disappointed. Oh well…life will go on for them.

The highlight so far today has been the bear sighting from our hotel window. It was so exciting that I had to drag Molly from the shower to see. All she kept saying was, “I told you to buy me some bear spray.” Keep in mind we are on the fourth floor of this nice hotel, safely ensconced behind a big glass window. But the bear, which Molly described as a huge grizzly, turned out to be a brown cub. But as she pointed out, the big mother was not far behind.  So while at breakfast, Molly and several others went outside to get a close-up shot of the bear. Everyone else came inside except for Molly and one of the employees who spent at least half an hour assuring her that she would be safe here in bear country. She is about to go on the zip line and has a long hike to get there. There are patrols all around. I’m just betting that she ditches the hike and jumps on an ATV with the patrol people and rides her way to the zipline. Just a hunch…We’ll see when she gets back.

(Before she left on her adventure, we had to go to the store and buy her some bear spray. Now she owes me $54. Four for the previously-mentioned ghost town tour and $50 for bear spray. She tried to explain that it was a real bargain because it lasts for five years.  She didn’t even take it on her adventure because it’s in a can as big as a fire extinguisher…Michael, I hope you didn’t read this last part.)  To the right is Molly and her bear spray.

Well, I was wrong about how she got up to the zipline. But you will love this: we are sitting in the basecamp office waiting for the other eight people to show up to go on the zipline and guess what? They called and rescheduled their activity for 3 p.m. leaving Molly with three guides to herself. How lucky and so diva-like. So, if there had been a bear attack, her odds would have been better: three guides to protect her instead of having one guide to protect three people. Thank goodness they carried bear spray because I was sitting at the basecamp holding hers. And I couldn’t take it back because she had taken it out of its package.

We are back in the room now. What a great day. While Molly decided to skip the ropes course, she went to the lobby to guess what? Upload more photos of herself. I went to the most wonderful hottub/pool I have ever been in. It was huge and hot and was wonderful as I sat there in the sleet, rain and snow. Better that than sitting in the sleet at Old Faithful.

We are going to have a very boring night, just like Molly’s fortune cookie fortune predicted: we are going to watch a movie and go to bed early. We have had to make a change of plans once we sat down long enough to look at our remaining trip for the week. After traveling together for this long, we realize we cannot do a 13-hour day again, so we are splitting the next leg of the trip into two parts. That means we will have to leave here tomorrow to get to Spokane in 7 hours. Then we will get to Seattle on Sunday in about 6 hours. I hate to leave here as you will be able to see from the pictures. We sure do appreciate Taylor Middleton arranging the lovely snow this morning.

We were pretty boring today. But we needed a day to recharge our batteries.

PS. Our big news today was Dad’s USA Today Front Page snapshot about his Saint Index.  Yay Popsicle!

P.P.S Molly: OK, this is just a quick update.  Not in a diva way, but I like my sushi.  Zumi Sushi, PM, and even Whole Foods sushi are my favorite places in Nash.  However, I just walked into the small grocery store here in Montana looking for dinner.   I asked the man at the counter if they had cold things and he directed me to the deli.  I asked if they had sushi, and he literally laughed so hard that he couldn't control himself.  I took that as a no. 
"You aren't from around these parts." he stated.  Well, no duh.  He collected himself long enough to ring up my Vogue, Time, and Lunchable.  He continued to chuckle as I exited his establishment.  Some people. 
Someone is going to have to Fed-Ex me some sushi please.


P.P.P.S. Anne: The only bear we need to see is Bear Bryant.  His birthday is tomorrow.

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xoxo,

Anne & Molly