Thoughts

I was thinking about a trip my family took once. We went through Yellowstone and it was amazing. I saw Old Faithful erupt, I saw moose and many other animals and then I saw a bear.

I was flyfishing. Well, to be honest I was flailing around with a pole and a fly trying to get it right. There was a noise off to the left of me, I didnt pay a lot of attention but I glanced over after about a minute or so.

Im 6'5" tall. The grizzly bear that walked out of the bushes about 40 feet from me was at least 2 feet taller than me and looked very much like the one in the picture. Light colored fur, a HUGE head and much longer legs than I expected. I took a very good look because I figured I was never going to get this close to another animal like this, probably because I was going to die soon.

Im not sure why it didnt charge me. Maybe it wasnt hungry, maybe it was just having a good day, maybe it was because I sucked at fly fishing and no fish had been within a mile of me. Whatever the reason, most of the time Im pretty happy it didnt. The incident also changed me. I have been really close to death more than once, but that was probably the closest. It would have taken seconds for that bear to run me down and kill me. Likely I wouldnt have even moved I was so transfixed by it.

Im not scared of death, not since that day. It doesnt bother me that one day I will die, it just makes me wonder what is next. When I realized the bear wasnt going to immediately charge me, I dropped the cheap flyfishing pole I had bought and just started walking. I walked in the general direction of some rocks I thought might protect me if I decided to chase me. I looked back twice, once the bear was watching me and 30 or so seconds later the bear had walked out into the river and already had a fish. I gave thought to heckling it for being such a better fisherman than me but I just stood and watched as it ate the fish and went back to feeding.

I would damn near sell my soul to be able to go back in time and have had my camera instead of a fly rod. Its weird the things you think about, isnt it?