The Bear

Sunday June 25 -Day 24- I woke early this morning. Decided to watch the last three episodes of The Bear before Megs woke up. We made some Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls before returning to our room for a nice clothes purging session. It is truly our favorite Sunday morning activity and this session did not disappoint. Got rid of several pairs of underwear and socks and white tees and was able to create a donation bag of upwards

of 10 t-shirts, 2 sweatshirts, 3 pairs of pants, and

2 hats. It was a good morning.

We take a ride to the grocery store to get some necessary items and then the Vail Valley Thrifty store to drop off my clothes donation and Megs old Trek bike that she had only ridden a handful of times since getting it to Colorado. Successful trip. I talk Megs into a quick trip across the street to the Village Mark-up to get an overpriced donut and canned Matè. We drive home. Upon our arrival we find that our trash barrel and recycling barrel have been turned over and ripped up. We know the culprit and it scares us both. It’s a bear! I turn the barrels right side up and refill them with the scattered bags of trash and debris and continue to park my car. I think that there is now not enough room for the bear to come back and flip the trash can for his snack. Boy am I wrong.

About 15 minutes go by and me and Megs are making a lunch treat that we found on Instagram. It’s a ham and gruyere croissant that we sculpt using crescent rolls. There delicious. However, as we are eating Megs thinks she hears something. I’m like no way but I’ll go check in a few minutes. Upon finishing I know that its time to hit my pen again before departing for the Betty Ford alpine gardens of Vail. When I walk up towards my truck I notice that both bins have been turned over and really ransacked this time. The Bear is back and he must be close. I take a few more steps to walk up the stairs into our car port and see him. Holy shit he is about 25 yards from me up on the hill looking at his lunch. Fearing that he may shift his lunch menu to include me, I run back inside and have megs hit her car alarm to hopefully deter the bear from staying close to our car port. After hitting the alarm several times, I want to go investigate and make sure that the bear had moved along. I walk towards the stairs where I am met with two cold eyes. The alarm had not done anything. This fucking bear is less that ten yards from me just rummaging our trash. Luckily for me there is a railing fence between us, and I have the key fab to continue to set the alarm off. I keep eye contact and hit the alarm. This scares him this time to the extent that he slowly scampers away, stopping every twenty yards or so to make sure the trash was still being guarded. I keep an eye on the bear until he is out of site and beyond so that he does not sneak attack us while we are cleaning up his mess.

We get the scattered trash all bagged up in new bags and put it in my car to bring to the local trash and recycling center. We cannot take anymore risks with leaving anything in our barrels while the bear is hot on our trails. The local recycling center has this machine that takes and compacts your trash. For a small fee of $8.75 for every three bags! That’s crazy and we already pay for trash! It’s all good we just need to keep it away from the bear.

We continue our afternoon adventure to Vail where we park in Golden Peak to walk down towards the alpine gardens. Vail is so lush this time of year we just cannot get enough of it. We do a quick loop towards the Vail nature center which boasts a great trek along the river and an abundance of natural wild grown wildflowers swaying in the wind. It’s a nice loop that brings us back to the bridge to the Alpine Gardens. This is the most beautiful I have seen these gardens in the past ten years. To my surprise the staff has also finished a large project that links together Plants of the Himalayas to the Alpine gardens and ties this merge together with a magnificent water feature. It is truly incredible. The gardens are so lush. We are so fortunate to live here and be able to come to these gardens whenever we please. We return home to find that our barrels had not been flipped over again and we could breathe a small sigh of relief.

I’m exhausted. It is time for me to draw a quick bath before falling asleep for a cat nap on the couch across from my babe. When I rise it is time to prepare dinner. We are going to have taco bowls with Italian sausage. Little bit of a wildcard but we are excited. We will sit outside as I am trying to soak up as many outdoor meals as possible before returning to Rochester.