Not So Cuddly Brown Bear and the Breathe Right Strips

I grew up in the country, and I long to live there again.   I love the big, star-filled sky at night.   I love the silence, broken only by bullfrogs and crickets, and an occasional car across a rock-covered road.  I like catching lightning bugs and putting them in old mason jars.    I love marking the seasons based on what the farmers plant, rather than squares on a calendar.  I love the romance of it all. 

I am not as fond of sleeping in the great outdoors, however.  

When The Kid was nearing her second birthday, Big Daddy decided he would take us on our one and only family camping trip.   We drove a gazillion and half hours, crossed our great state of Texas, and ventured halfway across New Mexico to find a suitable spot.   The same mountain campgrounds he had gone to when he was little.   

Now everyone join in with me as we sing, "The Circle of Life."

Our  His idea of camping is a tent, not a rolling home on wheels. We had our tent, a little camp stove, potable water, a couple of chairs, a little food, and some fishing rods. We were set. EVERY single campsite, but ours was filled up with RVs. Big ones, little ones, slide-out ones, ones with satellite dishes, and  ones with great big, noisy generators that kicked on at two in the morning.  Of course, due to our "true" camping status, I immediately felt superior to all these people who would not get the "real camping experience."  

Of course, having never have camped and being a little OCD, I was petrified of everything that could go wrong. I had purchased a snake bite kit, and I felt fairly sure I could suck the venom out of any bite, if needed. Heaven knows, I had read the directions about four billion times.   I had bells for us to wear when we hiked through the woods to warn the bears we were coming.  I had read about how you can sing as you walk so that the bears would run away; I knew if a bear heard my voice, he would head for the hills.   I had a huge first aid kit in case Big Daddy decided to fillet his hand rather than the trout. I was ready for anything.

Until, on the 18 hour drive, I realized that Aunt Flo had come to visit and now a bear would eat me for sure, since they can smell up to 20 miles away from them. A bell and a bad singing voice would not save me.  Good-bye, cruel world.

Other than my impending death, I have to say honestly, it was pretty cool to see the campgrounds through my husband's childlike memories.    The times he snuck out of the tent that his parents still don't know about.  The time, as a little guy, he fell into the lake and tried to hide it from his parents.  He knew all the good fishing spots and  had awesome stories of his dad trying to offroad to the top of a mountain in an old 60s tuna boat of a car.  We fed bread to the little chipmunks, and The Toddler squealed in delight and chased them.  Big Daddy took The Toddler to catch her first fish with her very own Barbie fishing pole.     

It was magical.

Until I went to the bathroom at the campground.

There two things happened.   One, I realized that the cute real life version of Chip and Dale, those lovable chipmunk scamps, were actually carrying bubonic plague and desperately wanted to kill my family with the Black Death.

Two, when I went to the bathroom, the Park Ranger stopped me since she didn't recognize me.  I explained we had just arrived a few hours earlier and were camping over in lot blah, blah, blah.    She informed me to be very careful with all our food and garbage as a bear was in the area.  Then she opened up the restroom door and showed me the claw marks in the concrete THREE feet above my head.   What kind of animal makes claw marks an inch deep and eight feet high in concrete?

Mother of Pearl.  I  really was going to be Not So Cuddly Brown Bear's next meal.  

Apparently, according to the Park Ranger, someone had thrown their trash into the bathroom garbage can.   Not So Cuddly had come down the mountain hungry for a nice meal of trash and pushed the door in.  Once inside, he/she/it/ had torn the bathroom stall's door off its hinges, ripped the sink from the wall, devoured the trashcan, and then remained trapped in the bathroom for 8 hours while he/she/it angrily clawed the inside concrete wall.

Once Not So Cuddly  had been discovered, he/she/it was released and had continued to make frequent forays into the campsite to look for more food.  

I quickly went back to the our tent, and let Big Daddy know that he would soon be a widower. I was definitely going to be a bear appetizer soon.  Or we were all going to make the bear a fine midnight snack.   Whichever.  We were not long for this world.    That's all I knew.

The first night in those mountains temperatures dropped to just above freezing.   It was stinking JULY.   It should not freeze anywhere in July.    The first night we all slept in our respective sleeping bags.   I woke up to my hot-natured toddler, having crawled out of her bag, sleeping in the fetal position on top of her sleeping bag.  Her skin was ice cold.   I drug her little icicle carcass into my bag, and we snuggled the night away.  

The next day dawned rainy, cold, and miserable.   Big Daddy was *all* in to the trout fishing, but as soon as we went down to the river, The Toddler was soaked and freezing.   Back she and I went to the tent to change clothes and warm up.   An hour later, she was begging to see Chip and Dale, the Bringers of Death, and the rain eased to a fine mist. After visiting with them for a bit, we were soaked and chilled to the bone, again.  Our noses were running.   Our skin would not warm.   The Toddler started getting really sleepy and lethargic. 

Nowhere in preparing for my trip had I read about hypothermia, but I strongly suspected that was where we were headed.  I bundled her back up again and prepared for the cold, wet hike to the river where Big Daddy was blissfully fishing away.   

Based on her condition, we quickly decided a trip into the nearest town over an hour away for a meal in a warm restaurant was the way to go.   I guess Big Daddy and I were a little addled from the cold, too, since  it never dawned us that we could have just started the car, turned the heater on, and warmed her up without wasting the gasoline or the cash for a meal.  We were oblivious to that idea though and headed off.

We returned to our tent around midnight.  The mist had stopped.  Temperatures had plummeted again. As we zipped our sleeping bags into a mondo, king-sized one, our noses began to run again.   We quickly snuggled down into that fluffy, warm heaven and prepared to sleep.

Several hours, later Big Daddy was awoken by a beastly noise.  He lay tense, waiting to hear it again.   The Toddler and I slept on.  His alertness was rewarded with another grunt and snort.    Big Daddy's heart began to pound.  Obviously, Not So Cuddly had chosen tonight to come root around our camp.    We were not in a big, metal RV.  We had chosen to camp in a nylon lunch sack.   Big Daddy's hand shook as he quietly grabbed our gun and prepared to possibly sacrifice his life for ours.  He just had to figure out which side of the tent the bear was on.

As Big Daddy kneeled on the sleeping bag, he heard the snort again.  Not So Cuddly was on my side of the tent.   Big Daddy crept to the zipper and prepared to face the beast.  Just as his hand reached the zipper, the biggest snort and grunt yet erupted from my side of tent.   

Big Daddy put the safety back on the gun, stowed it, and punched me in the arm.

"I almost killed you!"  he exploded.   "I thought the bear had come to eat us all.   Oh no.  It wasn't a bear.  It was you snoring."

"A lady never snores," I demurred.  

"A lady might not," he retorted, "but you sure as hell were."

To this day, I know it wasn't me.  It was Not So Cuddly Brown Bear ready to eat us all.  Big Daddy's shouting scared him off, I'm sure.

It was a miracle we survived.