Yellowstone Memories With Mom And A Bear

 

Saw that which you see above, yesterday, on Facebook, via Mildred Halbert's paternal parental unit, Jerry. 

Reading this brought about an amusing memory of my mom. 

In the above we read of the concern of a guest staying at one of Yellowstone's National Park Lodges, with that concern being "Our visit was wonderful, but we never saw any Bears. Please train your Bears to be where guests can see them. This was an expensive trip to not get to see bears."

It was either the summer of 1965, or 1966, that our annual vacation road trip took us to Yellowstone for the first time. Our 1964 Chevy Impala pulled an Arrowhead trailer. My two sister siblings slept in the trailer with mom and dad, whilst my little brother and I slept in the Impala. I got the back seat, Jake got the front.

We were camping in the huge Old Faithful campground. My brother and I were in the Impala, down for the night. Mom was still up, soaking her feet in a tub while sitting on the bench of a picnic table.

Suddenly my brother and I were fully awake, looking out the car's window to see our mom standing on top of the picnic table, screaming "Jack, Jack, Jack". 

Jake and I had no clue why mom was screaming from atop the picnic table.

And then we saw it. A big black bear was staring at mom from a distance of about 10 feet. When dad opened the trailer door the bear turned and ran. We heard other campers screaming as the bear made its rounds through the campground.

We saw dozens of bears on that trip through Yellowstone. The bears caused traffic jams. 

Over the years since that first trip to Yellowstone I've seen bears in the wild in various locations, including Yellowstone, again, where I got a picture of a bear sticking its nose in my 65 Mustang's driver side window.

I think I used the photo of the bear sticking its nose in my car on my long dormant Roadtripping blog. I shall see if my memory is serving me accurately. 

My memory did not fail me. I used the below photo in a blog post titled A Bear On My Car In Yellowstone National Park.

The most bears I have ever seen in the wild, outside of Yellowstone, was during my one and only time staying in Stehekin in North Cascades National Park. We were barely arrived from floating in on the Lady of the Lake when the first bear sighting happened. It was climbing a tree outside the National Park Lodge in which we were staying.

Each night in Stehekin we would ride a bus to the Courtney Ranch for dinner. On the way the bus driver would take us through an abandoned orchard of heirloom Delicious apples. There were dozens of bears in the trees feasting on apples.

I made a couple webpages about that visit to Stehekin in which you will see a bear or two. Unfortunately back then, my digital camera did not take good photos, although once in awhile it would. 

I wonder if I will ever see a bear in the wild again. Or see Yellowstone again. I think my last time in Yellowstone was way back in 1989. I saw no bears, but did see a lot of mountain goats...