The air is getting cool and crisp, the leaves are starting to change, farming is coming to an end, you can smell the smoke from wood burning stoves, and the boys in my family are getting hunting fever! Each of us were lucky (?) to draw deer tags and Ariel drew a youth elk tag. Yes, I am still wondering just how/why I consented to even put in, but even I drew a deer tag. At first Saul was feeling so lucky as he bragged to everyone about how many tags we got. Now he is feeling so stressed about how he is going to help us all fill them. About a month ago he hiked down on the Blue to our family hunting grounds and put up his trail camera along with some salt to bring in the critters. He has just been itching to get back in there to see just what was coming in, so he and Justin went in this weekend to retrieve the flash card. They headed out on Friday night and slept at the head of the trail. Saturday morning they got up and headed out on their 8 mile hike. They got in there, checked things out, switched out the card from the camera, set up blinds, and cleared some shooting lanes (oh yeah, we are high tech!) After about an hour and half of playing they decided they should head out on the 8 mile trip back out. As they were rounding things up, Saul looked up and saw a black bear just a little ways off. The bear was just limbering along, stopped to look at them, and then just mossed on. Saul usually takes my camera along because he always runs in to fun stuff like that, but he had called me last night to tell me he had forgot it- darn it. But he had his cell phone, which Justin was holding, so he told Justin to hurry and try to get some pictures of the bear with it. The bear was walking away as Justin was trying to take a picture. Saul grabbed the phone and went after it (Uh, just a little crazy). He got about 8 yards away from the bear and got a couple of pictures. Just then the bear stopped, turned around, and started walking towards Saul. Saul decided that was his cue to get out of there. Of course he didn't want to run, so he walked away fast and told Justin to get ready to get out of there. With the bear walking towards them Saul was fumbling to get his pack together and broke a zipper on a pocket. He hurried to get stuff into other pockets, got his pack on and he and Justin headed out. The bear just turned and walked away then. To make the story a little more interesting, it was the archery hunt so Saul didn't even have a gun with him. Of course he and Justin just thought that was the coolest thing ever! Justin said that he wasn't even scared like he thought he would be, the bear just reminded him of his old dog Jed and he just wanted to go and give him a big 'bear' hug! Uh, I wouldn't recommend it! Saul has always told me that it is his dream to wrestle with a bear. He says that if I die first he is going to go to Alaska to find a grizzly- that is how he wants to go out. I told him he has a real goal- to become bear ----! Anyway, he and Justin came home on cloud nine and just can't wait to get back out there. Oh yeah, there were 124 pictures from his camera, 2 of them were bears.