Lions, Tigers and Bears Oh My! Stupid Moments. . .

I have been thinking of bears not like Pooh Bear, but the brown ones with large gnashing teeth and big claws. My walking buddy and I love to recall our "Bear Hunt" at Departure Lake, Ontario. No, we didn't have rifles or crossbows but we may have had Swiss Army Knives and pea shooters. We just wanted to sneak into the dump at twilight and get a glimpse of nature. Her husband had mentioned it, and being curious, we (including the kids) wanted to experience a bear sighting. It was an innocent mixture of stupidity (I think it goes beyond stupidity, especially bringing the kids) and heatstroke that brought us to the dump. (This was in Northern Ontario, about as far as you could travel northwards on Highway 11. Then you went west towards Moonbeam. Yes, there is a place named Moonbeam, that actually has a UFO that you can pose under. Much to my children's horror I made them pose under the UFO, pretending they were "beaming up"). We travelled by truck to the dump entrance and had to hike into the dump the rest of the way. It was a few minutes to get to the open area of the landfill itself. My walking buddy's husband commented on how the setup of the dump had changed, so we walked in a little further. To our left was the "dump man's shack" and we couldn't see beyond it until we walked a little further. We walked and talked in hushed tones. As I kept my eyes to the left I saw two big brown boulder type things. I said "B......", is that a bear? We stared at the humps for a minute, until suddenly, the bears started to charge us, at this point they were probably 200 feet away. I am sure it was all the "Skin So Soft" that alerted them to our presence. The bears were running at a good clip, B**** yelled "RUN". . . so Gibbles and Tibbles took off with Adam careening through the bush path (actually he was gimping, from a skateboarding accident), my walking buddy was in full sprint with her son. My reaction was this was a great photo opportunity. I "thought" I was getting pictures of the bears running towards us with flapping jowls and saliva, and only started to sprint when I heard their guttural yowls. Then I ran, all the while taking photographs. *No, you are not supposed to run, but it was each of our gut reactions, and it worked out well in the end. We all made it back to the truck, panting, drooling, and trying to scuttle into the back of the cab. Then there was the ULTIMATE ADAM MOMENT. I got in the back seat. Adam wanted to ride shotgun. Yet before he could get in (and the bear could have still been coming towards us), he said in his Vulcan way "Lisa. Put the seat in the correct position." "Just get in" I replied. "Put the seat in the correct position". This must have gone on for at least a minute. Finally I said, "Adam, just get in the flipping truck". I didn't use "flipping" though. Anyway, none of my pictures turned out. They were of gravel. I must have been so nervous that I forgot to center the camera and was just shooting aimlessly at my feet while waiting for my impending demise. Second bear incident. . .Honeymoon in Algonquin, in a tent, scary snorting and bumping. I woke Adam up, we lay in the sleeping bag trembling all night. We weren't sure exactly what was going on. Our packs were up in the trees, but, I had snuck some gummy bears into the tent. The next morning we got up, and there was bear shit all around the tent. OOOOH SCARY.