bearly something

Today I saw a brown bear. My Alaskan experience may be complete. Mark and I went on a trip to the post office and to take a peek at the weir where salmon swim up the river to die. When we were headed home, looking both ways to cross an intersection, we spotted the bear crossing the road a few hundred feet from us. We raced to see him up close and discovered not only was he humungous but he only had 3 legs!! Mark immediately hollers “That’s the same bear that tried to maul my dad!” Apparently 5 years ago Mark was fly fishing up here with his dad and his buddy. They each were carrying a gun just incase but his dad’s gun was only a 22- a bee sting to a bear. After a few hours of fishing Mark looks up and sees this bear 50 feet across the river staring down his dad. He yells at his dad to watch out and just about that time the bear starts charging across the river. All three men have their guns up and ready to kill this thing… and he slows down and literally brushes past Mark’s dad. Five years later he’s running around Kasilof chasing butterflies. Or something. It was pretty cool to see- his head was bigger than half my body, and he got around pretty well for only having 3 legs. I wouldn’t get too close to him though- I’d be pretty grumpy if I only had 3 legs and humans were staring at me. I guess if I had 3 legs humans would be staring at me. Anyway… the moral of this story is I need to start carrying my camera with me everywhere I go.