Beary Cool

This weekend we took a trip around Arizona to see family before we move to Utah. We were staying at Sean's parents house in Holbrook when something VERY unusual happened. Holbrook is a really small town in northern Arizona with only about 5000 people. The nearest small town in 30 miles away, and the nearest "big" town, Flagstaff, is almost 100 miles away. In other words, Holbrook is out in the middle of no where, with a lot of undeveloped, wild, and barren land surrounding it.

Sean and I took a drive Saturday evening while his family watched Gracie and Kemp. How nice is it to be alone, with out kids, for even 30 minutes! Its great to have that time to regroup a little and enjoy each other with out distractions.

As we pulled up in front of his parents house and got out of the car, a neighbor ran toward us and exclaimed, "Did you see it?!" I thought she was talking about a UFO or something. We asked what she meant. "The bear!" she replied. A bear? Sure enough, we turned around and in the tree behind us there was a bear. It was brown, american black bear, and maybe 150-200 lbs.

Apparently someone driving by saw it wandering in the street by the Smithson's and cornered it with their car. The bear climbed into the nearest tree which was across from the Smithson's driveway. Animal control was called and by the time they got there the whole neighborhood had gathered around.

The story does not have a happy ending. After being in the tree for about 30 minutes (I dont know why animal control took so long to get their act together and take care of the problem) the bear got spooked and climbed down, through the neighbors yard, and into another tree. The whole neighborhood followed, but I opted not to because I thought the crowd was just complicating the problem. From what I heard, the second tree was much taller and the bear was pretty high up. Maybe the height of two houses. When they finally shot the bear with a tranquilizer, it fell from the tree, a very long drop. No one knows if it incurred any injuries because it was asleep when they took it away. I hope it survived all right but I have my doubts.

It was a very exciting and strange experience. It was neat that it was right on the side of Sean's parent's house. I have pictures and video on my camera that I hope to post soon. Like I said, Beary cool.