Monday, July 20th

Today we started off badly with the computer crashing right off! Yesterday it crashed 5 times! That set us back almost 2 hours yesterday, today it only crashed the one time. After about 20mins the fourth air flow meter started freaking out and couldn't regulate itself. We didnt know how to fix it so one little squirrel got off easy after only 20 mins in the chamber! That leaves us down one squirrel but I'm sure we'll catch another while looking for chipmunks anyways. P.S. the fact that we got to skip the fourth chamber made us get done more than two hours early!! Yeah, We needed it!

The weather was good today (yesterday it poured) and we had a fairly uneventful day till right at the end...

So there I was doing some yoga, Dr. Wilson was in the car watching Star Trek or something. I was in a balancing pose where you focus straight ahead and stand on one leg when I heard a branch snap to my left. I looked and saw a pair of deer ears from the back, pretty average considering we're in front of a river and have seen deer all week. I glanced up to see what the deer was looking at and saw a brown blob, this blob didnt look like a rusty pine tree... too thick. The blob started moving about and I realized it was a bear... a grizzly bear!

We had been waiting to see one and the ranger warned us it was in the area plus someone saw it near us on Saturday so we were prepared. I ran back and got Dr. Wilson cause he'd never seen one either. It wasnt more than a few years old, fairly small for a grizzly apparently but HUGE to me! The crazy thing is that it can disappear in the willows or pine so well that it pops up right near you and you dont even see or hear it! We watched it for a couple of minutes and then it climbed our hill and disappeared in the pines next to us. We didnt see it again, pretty exciting!

This is from yesterday in the pouring rain! I loved it, very refreshing and cool.

I call him... camo squirrel

Isn't it pretty here?

My bear scrounging for grubs in the willows. By the way the willows are like 6 feet tall, they cover my head so you could imagine how the bear would move through them without being seen.

The Griz on the prowl. You can tell its a grizzly because of that hump on his back, black bears dont have the hump.

Mom, Dad, and Jessie... just so you know we DO have bear spray which can sometimes work on Grizzlies. Also I am quicker and more nimble than Dr. Wilson so I think I could out run him. Lastly I learned that Grizzlies don't climb trees... but I do and I think I could climb pretty fast if needed!