It was like a scene from a horror movie. The innocent heroine is pulling dinner out of the oven when she hears a loud pounding noise. Unable to identify the noise, she starts walking towards the back of the house. It appears to be coming from the side door, which leads outside. As she leans closer to the door...
A giant bear paw slams against the glass, trying to break the door down.
I cannot tell you how scary this was. There is plenty of literature around the park telling you what to do if you encounter a bear while hiking. But there isn't any instruction on what to do if a bear breaks your door down and tries to crawl inside! Luckily it didn't succeed, and only tore up and bent the window screen.
After it wandered away I pulled out the camera. First it tried to get into the motor home parked next door:
Then, when the people in the RV blew their horn, it was startled and jumped into a tree. Note to self: climbing trees is not a good option for getting away from bears.
It proceed to stalk around the neighborhood for the next half an hour, circling the house a few times. I was glad when it left, but I will be forever vigilant whenever I leave the house.
The next morning I encountered a bear (maybe the same one) on the road in front of my car. While the tourists got all excited, stopped in the middle of the road and pulled out their cameras, I tried to scare it off the road by driving next to it. The tourists were probably mad, but people in the SUV from New Jersey, you don't understand. Bears are scary. Not cute.
