Fight With A Bear

I peeked out of the tent to investigate the noises I had heard. I have never been a wife who could wait for her husband to check out the noise. Mostly because noises have to be pretty extreme to stir hubby. So there I was peeking out of the tent, just my face and my knee poking out of the zipper door. I froze. A bear was rifling through our trash. Unfortunately for me, his hearing was as keen as mine. He was on full alert. Toby and Erik were both snoring loudly. My protectors. My mouth was full of cotton and my brain unable to formulate words. Thankfully the girls were locked safely in the van and all sound asleep. The bear's eyes met mine and he began to amble over to me. I was frozen. He gave a low rumbling growl and grabbed my knee with his paw. I stared in amazement at how sharp his claws were. As he made contact with my knee, I lost touch with reality.

Next thing I knew, I had fallen out of the door of the tent and a wounded bear was running quickly away from our camp with a barking Toby hot on his heels. Erik had awakened and punched the bear right in the nose with all the might that a former football lineman could muster. This was enough might to cause the bear to reel back on unsteady legs. Then Toby forced that bear to sure up his stance and flee our campsite. Apparently he was not hungry enough for a fight.

The bear claw left quite a "grizzly" wound on my knee, but we consider ourselves blessed that this was the only damage and that the bear was a small one.

*****Disclaimer*****

This story is so much better than what really happened which is that I slipped down on one knee on a slight incline of loose gravel. The only "bear" in the real story was the one Lilly brought to sleep with. So far, there are not bears in Kentucky. They are still respecting the Tn/Ky border.

Toby was involved as I was holding his leash at the time. My wound cancelled our hike through the woods as my knee was swollen and hurt too much to step across the ravines-I did try. I love to hike through the woods more than anything! Erik loves this particular hike because there is a cemetary. We settled instead for a hike through the camp, paved flat roads, not nearly as much fun. It is definitely a real pain in the knee. I am not very wimpy, but it is a bad place to get an injury since knees have to bend and all.

When we arrived back home, Erik wrenched his back as he was unloading the bikes off of the trailer. He is miserable-much more pain in that than my knee is causing. We're much too young to feel this **** old.