Day 30: The Bears

I've already written about the bears here, but they definitely deserve special mention for reasons to love Colorado. Where else do you pretty much expect to see bears in your front yard? Like so:

These pictures were taken in October of 2013. At the time, I was terrified of the bears. In fact, Dustin knew that our neighborhood was well-known for bear sightings and interactions and he ON PURPOSE didn't tell me when we put the offer on our house because he knows me that well. I have a very irrational fear of all carnivorous wild animals. I used to have a recurring nightmare about lions chasing me. Well, it was one lion, and he would be leaping through the air to eat me when I would wake up completely freaked out. Heart pounding. Face sweating. Afraid I might see a lion that day. You know, the usual.

Dustin tried to convince me that black bears aren't actually carnivorous, and they really just want easy food, but that didn't stop me from being terrified to let the kids play outside alone. Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly vulnerable, I close the garage door before we get out of the car. Stuff like that.

Despite this, when mama bear and her two cubs came to grab a snack out of our trash can, I sat transfixed on our porch with Dustin and Avery. It. was. amazing.

Watching them move around 'in the wild' instead of at a zoo was not as terrifying as I thought it would be. I loved it.

Dustin had been watching them dig through the neighbors trash so happy to have the bears visit, but the minute they started in on our trash, he grabbed his sling shot. Haha! Later our neighbor was like, 'What the heck?! Why didn't you sling a few rocks in their direction to get them out of our trash?' The thing is, we were all kind of mesmerized by these grand creatures almost on our front porch with us.

It turns out that Dustin was right about black bears. They do want easy food, and he made it too hard by flinging a rock right at their bear bums. (Did that make you giggle, too? Bear bums!)

I love that the baby is looking back at Dustin, like, 'are you sure I can't eat your trash?'

Now, I always hope to see bears, and I am sure Colorado will offer that experience to me again. In the meantime, I already have one fun memory and the anticipation of seeing them again. Soon.