It's All Fun And Games Until Bears Attack.

Yesterday morning, we woke up in a really fancy house that smelled like breakfast. This house, that our friends own, is located only a few miles from Canada. And our room in this house has a sliding door that overlooks mountains that surround a lovely lake with a French name that goes on and on for miles. When this sliding door is opened, you can hear the water lapping up on the docks that hold boats that you can ride to different shores where there are trails. Lots of trails.

So yesterday we decided to drive to one of these trails. And for some reason because looking at mountains isn't quite enough, we decided to climb one.

At first, I was a little nervous about this. Mainly because the last time I hiked up a mountain I ended up having to take karate for physical therapy.

And I never want to take karate again.

But this time, we had an almost five-year-old camper along, and I thought, if she can do it, surely so can I.

So we headed upward.

And then it occurred to us: There are bears around these parts.

And we all smelled like bacon.

We had no bear repellent, armory, or counter-attack plan. In fact, we all had no idea what to do if we ran across a bear.

But really, I mean, bears attacking while you're hiking, it's so cliché. Kinda like seeing Paris Hilton when you're out at an LA club. I mean, it could happen, probability-wise and all, but it's so expected, it's almost dumb. That's how I felt about the bears.

Our almost five-year-old cohort felt the same way and wasn't scared at all. She started calling out to the bears. Telling them to step off because we weren't afraid. And that was mostly true.

Mostly.

Until we saw bear tracks. And bear poo. Both pretty fresh. We looked at each other with a little concern, but kept on.

That's about the time when everyone over four feet tall started looking up and around for any movement anywhere that wasn't instigated by us. We were all trying to be nonchalant of course. No one wanted to admit concern. But the leaders of the pack were making a few too many bear jokes for me to believe they weren't just a tiny bit concerned.

We made it to our stopping point without any sightings.

Then we made it back down with even more track and poo sightings. Five times the track and poo sightings. It seems the smell of bacon makes a bear want to mark his territory.

And seeing bears mark their territory makes me want to spend today on the boat.