Adventures While Camping Solo

I recently found myself camping in bear country. Alone in a canyon with just my dog
and a small air horn that I bring for emotional protection. After a series
of campsites flooded with people, I was happy to find this empty site located alongside
a babbling creek a few miles up a canyon off a gravel road. Zoey (dog) and I arrived in

early afternoon just as a mountain rainstorm began to descend upon us. We sat in the
van, me eating my chicken salad and Zoey wishing I'd share, waiting for the rain to
stop. Once it did, we set up our camping spot in quick order, explored a path as far as
it would go in one direction and then back to the van. Not another vehicle passed on
the road. No other camper arrived to share our large group site. It was only 3 pm - -
still hours before dark - - and we were already quite bored. I decided to head back to
town for a quick tour of its cemetery, and to pick up a bottle of tequila.

A few hours later, back at our solitary campsite, I sipped on the tequila as I prepared
and ate my evening meal. After dinner, I took a couple more sips of the tequila and
was enjoying its warmth ooze through my veins when I noticed the scratches.

Tell tale vertical scratches on the trees. Bear scratches. Fresh bear scratches. The
bark was shredded in places well above my head. The nail marks left deep grooves in
the tree's soft exposed flesh. A large bear, no doubt.

"Oh sh*!" was my first tequila-clouded thought. It was almost dark and my brain was
racing. What to do? What to do?! Somehow I extracted from my foggy memory a host
of bear safety skills. I put all food, cooking gear and the clothes I had worn to cook in,
inside a two man tent I had brought along, "just in case". Then, I set the ice chest
outside of the tent, and rigged it with every metal pan or chair I had so I'd hear the
clanging of an intruding bear. Next, I moved the van, where Zoey and I planned to sleep,
to the furthest end of the campsite and turned it around so I could shine the headlights
on the offending bears as they crashed and clanged their way into the ice chest and
nylon tent.

Then it was time for bed. I carefully stowed my glasses in the center compartment. I kept
the airhorn within easy reach. I studied one last time the exit path I would need to navigate
in the dark to reach the road. I hung the van's keys on the turn signal. And then I laid down
to sleep.

Or not.

Images of a large ban of marauding bears kept sleep at bay for most of the night. When
I looked at the clock for the 100th time and saw it was nearly sunrise, such a sense of relief
washed over me. I was still alive and our campsite intact.

This event became a metaphor for me. This isn't the first time I've turned an idyllic scene
complete with babbling creek, into a band of marauding bears. How often am I afraid of what
might happen? How often do I have the skills to navigate a potential hazard, but then doubt
my own abilities?

Yet, in this instance, I put together a plan. And executed it. And, for all intents and purposes,
I survived. Maybe not as gracefully or as confidently as I might've liked. But I didn't go back to town looking for a motel room. Good for me.