We saw a total of 5 black bears on the last third of our travel today and they were all seen as a single bear in different sides of the highway along the route. I got real good pictures of the first black bear alongside of the road on the right side.
In this picture below, the bear coudn't have been 2 feet outside my window (that I had to put down to take a good pic); OR better yet, it was just one lunge away from being on my lap...EEKS!!! Then, I tell Bob to close my window quickly after I snapped the picture cause it was spooking me out to be SO CLOSE
to the bear. He, then, proceeds to tell me this story about a video he saw years ago of a bear that was in the back of a truck in a live bear trap that the Forestry Dept. was taking somewhere else to release. The driver of the truck gets to a good natural wildlife area and opens his window. He has a rope contraption above his door on the outside of his truck so he can pull the rope from inside the cab to open the trap door. Sounds safe enough!!! The bear gets out and within a wink of an eye, the bear had jumped in the opened window before the guy had gotten it back up and was with him in his truck attacking him. In the meantime, his partner next to him jumped out the front passenger door, and 'luckily' the driver was able to slide over and get out the door. The driver escaped with injuries but lived. Don't you know that he had to change his briefs after that encounter!! ANYWAY, enjoy this up close picture, because after that story my window will be UP taking the pic if a bear us that close!!!
After that bear sighting, which was the first, we were traveling and unable to stop to get pics due to the traffic behind us and not being able to stop since we were pulling our RV but would let Jesse & Ginger know location & what we saw just in case they could slow down &/or pull over, so check their blog for more bears if they were able to get pics.
We arrived
at our destination of Stewart, BC, at approx. 2:40 p.m. and quickly found the campground
we plan to stay at, Bear River RV Park. ($38.30 x 2 nights = $76.60 Cap). It is full hook-up, WI FI slow, but works,
Cable TV, includes Good Sam Discount. We
got parked and set up.
After a
while, we got together to go to the reason for us being in this neck of the
woods….bear viewing at Fish Creek in Hyder, Alaska. Hyder is approx. 1 mile from Stewart,
Canada. The bear viewing area is a
national parks place as Jesse is able to use his America The Beautiful pass
that gets the rest of us in for free.
So, we are glad he is “old”; well, at least he’s older that the rest of
us.
There is a
wooden boardwalk with high railings that extends beside the Fish Creek. This is the viewing area for black bear &
grizzly bears that might come down to the rocky stream, as well as other
animals. This time of year, just
starting about now, Grizzlies and black bear are seen often in the stream catching
salmon that are going upstream. Today,
there are not many salmon that could be seen but heard they are coming this
way. Every day there will probably be
more and more salmon seen here as the salmon run is just starting at this
location.
It was
raining so we were all clad in our rain gear.
We stood around watching for
about an hour or so and decided to go somewhere to eat dinner and return to
watch some more.
We went to “Glacier
Hyder Inn” that a ranger recommended. It
was in an old building and inside the walls & much of the trim were covered with real
paper money with people’s names, etc. written on the bills. It was a large open room so there was a lot of
money hanging on those walls…probably a nice little hefty amount of money. I would be afraid the old building would burn
to the ground. The food was good and the
waitresses were friendly.
After
dinner, we went back to Fish Creek viewing area. It was still pouring down rain. We watched for quite a while with no bear or anything sighted so we
decided leave and head back to the campground.
This area
averages 16 feet of rain per year so we are all glad that we have rain gear.
Going back
to Stewart, we had to go through Canadian Customs. (Going to Hyder there is not a US Customs to
go through.) There is about a mile
between the two towns…but one is in Canada and the other is in Alaska.
When we got
back, I started working on the blog, but ran into a problem getting into my
blog. I had to enter my Google username
and password, which I did with no problem.
Then, it wanted to do a 2nd Verification, in which Google
sends a text message with a code that you enter at the 2nd
Verification page. Well, we have a
problem, there is no cell service here….closest is 200 miles we were told. Other ways to get a code would take 2-3 days
for Google to do a verification before I can get back on my blog. Well, I threw my arms up in disgust, and gave
up. Bob gets aggravated with me cause I’m
not trying to do something about it, so he starts working on the
situation. He, somehow, was able to get
me to my blog. By then, he is tired and
goes to bed, but I stay up to work on my blog. First, I had to go through it
seemed like hundreds of pics we took today to determine what pics I wanted to
put on the blog. Now, it is getting real
late, and I decided to download all the pictures on our cards to the computer
so we could start out fresh for the upcoming bear sightings. That took quite a long time because I had
several days of pictures on both cards.
I got that finished, while doing dishes and straightening up the LR
& kitchen some, and decided I better
get to bed or I won’t want to get out of bed.
I will get 4 ½ hours as it is IF I can get to sleep right away. Well, I never get to sleep right away…it
usually takes me a long time to finally get to sleep. I listened to the hard pounding of rain and
already thought that if it is raining in the morning that I’m not going. I really didn’t think Ginger would go either,
so the guys could go together. I guess,
we will see what happens when my alarm goes off at 5:20….to go OR not to
go. I am NOT a morning person!!
Have a good
day or good night, whichever it might be!!
Fd $23.00
Cap/
jl
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