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I’m a “scaredy-cat‟!! There, I admit it. I hate loud noises. At the first sign of a thunderstorm, I find the deepest, darkest corner I can find to hide. So on the last evening of our trip to Canada, when Ms. Mar talked about going hunting to shoot some wildlife, under the bed I went. Even the thought of a gun going off makes me shake in my gorgeous white boots. But when they started packing up their cameras, tripods and binoculars, I relaxed a bit. I could handle that as long as I’m not used as bait.

It was the opening night of the NFL and Mr. C wanted to watch the Vikings play New Orleans. But Ms. Mar, Mike and Diane wanted to take a drive and see if they could find any wildlife. The only thing they had seen the whole week were those specks of dandruff, i.e. mountain goats, earlier in the week. So Mr. C grudgingly went along. They’d heard from people in town that Spray Lake was a good place to try to see some bear and moose. Spray Lake is just a few miles outside of Canmore so we thought we’d check it out. It didn’t seem too promising at first. It was raining, gray and cold and a miserable evening for a drive.

Then Mike stopped the truck and pointed to a black spot in the middle of the lake. I brought both paws to my pretty green eyes as Ms. Mar turned me to the right direction. Only then did I see the black spot. What’s so great about a black spot in the water? But as I looked closer, it was moving and was getting closer to the shore. Ms. Mar let me look through the binoculars (note they don’t make ‘em for sophisticated cats). As the black spot got closer to shore, I could see it was a bear swimming very quickly toward land. Who knew that a bear could swim that fast? Why would he even want to, because the lake must have been cold. As it clambered (as you can see, Ms. Mar has a way with words) onto land, it hauled ass (OMG) into the woods. Mike must have had lead in his boots because the car flew toward where the bear was headed.   The little bear launched himself out of the woods onto the road and ran down the road a ways before running off into the woods. Ms. Mar got a couple of photos of the bear swimming and running but it was just a little too fast for her. But that got their hunting juices flowing and they drove further down the road.

Eagle Eye Mike then spotted another bear lumbering along the lake. They stopped the car to get a better look and saw that it was a gerbil, nope my-bad, it was a grizzly. Ms. Mar and Mike jumped out of the car to take photos never getting too far away from the car. I hid under a box in the back yelling, “don’t leave me Ms. Mar.” That was one big bear and I know he could easily use me as toilet paper. But the bear just continued on his way, stopping to eat some berries as he went. Mr. Mar was so excited about seeing that bear. All I could think of was to get the hell out of here. I yelled to Mike, “leave Ms. Mar Mike, go, go, go!” He didn’t hear me because he was fiddling with his camera. Well, it turned out that momma bear was only interested in berries and not cat meat. Whew!!!!

Ms. Mar wanted to continue on to see if they could find a moose. Mr. C had never seen a moose and Ms. Mar wanted him to see one. She would tell stories of how big a bull moose can be. She said you could fit a Volkswagen Bug under the legs of a big bull moose, but Mr. C doesn’t believe her. Like I said before, Ms. Mar sometimes exaggerates. But, alas, we did not see a moose in this trip so I guess we still can’t believe her story.

The rain stopped and the clouds parted long enough to have a glorious sunset. Ms. Mar was able to get a lot of photos. Once it got too dark to see anything we headed back to town . . . just in time to watch the Vikings lose the football game. Minnesota people are the only ones that wear those funny braids at gatherings. I don’t understand it.

Our week in Canada is done and we’re heading back to Oregon.  I don’t know where I’ll be traveling to next week, but it will be fun.  I hope you will join me.

Meow for now.

Tux