Last night, I was sitting down with my five-year-old daughter Alyssa at my computer and was showing her a YouTube video of some of the gorgeous sights that I’d be photographing and videotaping in Glacier National Park. I mentioned that I’d be camping for most of the time. Suddenly, Alyssa got very sad and whimpered that she dearly wanted to go camping with me. She even started to cry. Mind you that she’s never successfully stayed in a tent to camp overnight even when we had one set up in the backyard for the past month. Yet on the two nights we tried sleeping in the tent, we saw a possum when going to the tent on the first night and then a skunk on the second. Although she was incredibly excited to spend the night in a tent, seeing these small nocturnal animals out and about got her scared away from camping and wanted to go inside. I kept trying to remind her that they wouldn’t bother us because they’re the ones who are actually afraid of us since we’re bigger than they are. Yet at Glacier National Park, there would also be bears and other wild animals sometimes roaming around at night. “But they won’t bother humans since they’re just looking for any food that campers leave out,” I explained. The thought of even larger animals wandering around in the dark freaked her out even more. “I don’t want to go camping, daddy!!” I immediately tried to calm her down, “And that’s why I didn’t think it would be a good idea for you to go out with me. But just remember that the animals won’t bother humans as long as we leave them alone.” I assured her that we’d eventually go camping once she’s old and mature enough to be able to stay the whole night in a tent at a campground.
The cruel, twisted irony of this story is that I woke up this morning to read the breaking news that a grizzly bear mauled and killed a mountain biker in Glacier National Park where I’d be camping for several nights. So much for calming my daughter down that outdoor animals won’t bother you. The wild is still the wild. Let’s just say that I won’t be telling my daughter about this grizzly bear attack. Sigh.
News of the Surreal (for Real): “Grizzly Bear Kills Mountain Biker in Montana.” And I’ll be there in just two weeks.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/sheriff-grizzly-kills-person-glacier-national-park-40236152
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