Why You Should Wear Your Glasses...Especially in the Woods

First I must say that this story is likely one of those "you had to be there" stories, but I thought I should share it anyways. If not for a laugh, then for your safety.

One of my favorite things to do is hiking. I grew up camping and fishing and running around barefoot and dirty in the woods, so it really is a place that feels like home.

Last weekend my friend Mary Ann and I went up the mountain to hike to the top of a waterfall. It was a beautiful day and we were ready for some adventure.

We had no idea what we were in for.

We started on our trail, and a few minutes later as we turned a corner Mary Ann grabbed my arm and whispered that there was a bear to our right.

Fact. Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

I look up ahead to the right, and I see it there, the large brown bear by the trail that my friend was assumably talking about. 

I start to back up from the big scary bear when she points out the bear that she is actually talking about, which is to our immediate right, way too close for comfort.

Then I see the bear cubs that are now closely to the back of us.

We are going to die.

She starts to pull me forward, but frantically I tell her to stop because she obviously is blind and doesn't see the other huge, gigantic, massive bear to the front of us. We are surrounded.

We can't go back without getting closer to the cubs, we can't move forward because of the huge bear that waits for us at the next corner, and if we stay there we will die by the sharp teeth of an angry momma. So we go to the left, up the mountain, around the mamma and babies, and finally around the other bear that my friend still doesn't see....

We get a safe distance and stop to breathe and to take some pictures.

After a few moments my eyes focus on the other bear, and realize why she didn't see it...

Because it was a log.

Yes, I almost died of a heart attack and made my friend climb up the side of the mountain to safely get around a huge log.

Blind. Old. Lady.

Long story short, we survived the real bears, and the stupid log bear, and we made it to the top of the falls.

On our way back down the hill we laughed hysterically about that stupid log that I was freaking out about, and I made note that a lot of logs really do look like bears.

We decided that on the way back we should stop by the bear log and take a picture so we could look back at it and laugh.  

But then, as we neared the log, we saw this...

Needless to say,

we got the heck out of the bear haven, 

Mary Ann's husband will never let her go hiking with me again, 

and you should always wear your glasses in the woods.