Bear Spotted in Yellowstone Campground
My story is a quick one which started when my family and another couple went out west from our home in Wisconsin. It was summer and the first time I had been so far away. I was about 8 and my brother 6. It was 1977 and what a trip it was.
Our first stop was in South Dakota where we were dangerously close to a passing tornado. The next day we went to Wall Drug and saw the tourist stuff there. Then we were off to Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. We then traveled on to Wyoming to see the Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, and finally Yellowstone with the great Old Faithful Geyser.
We stopped off in the mountains on the way and had a snowball fight in the middle of August. What a great time that was. Then we made it to Yellowstone.
We started off by camping in the actual park. My parents had an RV and we were self contained. We were warned emphatically about the natural occurance of wild bears and other animals in the park; and that we were not in an amusement park. So, one day while there, my brother and I and the other boy we were traveling with were playing outside. My parents were out there taking Super 8 home movies and my Dad started yelling at us kids. He yelled for us all to get in the motorhome immediately. (I thought we had done something wrong, that's the reason for the yelling.) My Dad saw a bear in the woods! Oh my how frightening! We stayed in the RV for most of the morning and then left to go do some sightseeing.
The trip went on as usual; we went up north from Yellowstone to Montana and Glacier National Park and then into Canada to Banff National Park, Lake Louise, and the Columbian Ice Fields. We were gone three long weeks. What a trip we all had and what memories I still cherish.
Some time after we returned we sent the movie film in for developing. That fall we had a "watch" party and invited over all of our friends to eat, drink and watch our home movies.
So, there we all are, watching the movie and it comes to the point where the bear was spotted. The camera was zoomed and we got a good shot of the bear. Then someone pointed out, I believe it was my Mother. She said to my Dad, "There's a collar on that bear!" We rewound the film and watched it again and low and behold, there was a bright red collar on what we thought was a bear. Turns out it wasn't a bear after all, just a very, very large dog. It took a long time for my Dad to live that one down.
I revel in that story because I now have taken the old movie reels and converted them to DVD and watch them occasionally. I still laugh when I think about that time so many years ago.
Funny Anecdotes | 1960-1980
Submitted 3/4/2010, WETA
