Teasing Tatanka and Other Travel Plans

Tatanka – Lakota Sioux word for American Bison (buffalo)

If a bear charges you after a surprise encounter, stay still and stand your ground.  National Park Service Advisory

The plans are pretty much in place.  The accommodations are all booked, the basic itinerary is set and in less than two weeks it’ll be time for us to over pack, throw fishing and camera gear and mountains of other stuff and junk into the car that we won’t need and will never touch and head out on vacation.  I’ll leave the boilerplate “out of office” email message that says I’ll have no cell phone or internet service while I’m gone.  You see this is all part of the new American work protocol in which your employer expects you drop everything, leisure, kids's birthdays, sex and death (a family member's or yours), if and when duty calls.  By saying that you don't have any service you're trying to sound like you're saying, "Gosh I'd really like to but I'm in the wilderness."  But what you're really saying is "Fuck off:" Everyone leaves the same basic message, “Hi, I’m sorry I missed your email but I’m at Silicon Valley and there’s no internet or phone service here.”  I mean really how many places are left where you have no phone or internet service?  Actually I know of one.  That will be the cabin in Montana we’re renting for 5 nights out of the two weeks we'll be gone.  It’s about 20 miles from the nearest town and there really is no phone or internet. 

For a lot of people planning a vacation is, “Let’s go to Cabo and we can lie in the hot sun and maybe go on a fishing trip and then we’ll figure the rest out when we’re there.”  The wife is more than happy to take a laissez faire attitude towards these trips because she knows the old man treats these things the way Eisenhower treated D-Day; with maps, books, weather reports and notes covering the oversized dining table that’s rarely used except for holiday meals, stacking important documents that should be in a safe deposit box and – vacation planning. When it comes to vacation planning I sort of wobble on a razor’s edge of anal lunacy. 

It’s a road trip this year.  I love road trips.  I love road trips because once you’ve left the house your vacation’s begun.  If you’re taking a flight somewhere then once you’ve left the house all that happens is your blood pressure gets jacked up; getting to the airport (God please don’t let there be traffic), checking baggage, checking in, stripping down and bending over for TSA and then once on the cramped plane trying to find a few spare centimeters of space in the overhead.  And once you're seated next to the guy with the over sized laptop you're still not done; there’s missed connections, getting your bag from baggage claim, getting to your hotel and checking in.  By the time you’ve arrived in your room you don’t even care that the three tiny bottles of Jack Daniels from the minibar that you just knocked back to take the edge off just fleeced your vacation budget to the tune of 35 bucks.  But on a road trip as soon as I hit the highway I’m popping in a Toby Keith CD and cruising to new places.

This year’s destination is Wyoming and Montana with the emphasis on Yellowstone National Park.  Recently there’s been a bit of bad PR timing for that area; at least where the wife is concerned. You know that cabin I mentioned?  Well our neighbors there will be deer, bison, big horn sheep and bears and in the evenings we’ll be serenaded by howling wolves.  Well no sooner had I paid for that reservation than the story came over the internet: Man 'Found Partially Consumed' After Grizzly Bear Attack In Yellowstone.  Small consolation for the part that was unconsumed because all parts were in fact dead; graveyard dead.  The man was local and maybe it was one of those wrong place, wrong time tragedies.

What wasn’t wrong place, wrong time was the woman from Mississippi who was launched airborne by a bison. That one was wrong place, no brain.  Seems she thought it would be a good idea to pose for a selfie with a 3500 pound wild beast that might have been holding a grudge over the slaughter of its ancestors back in the 19^th century. Yellowstone is rife with warnings.  Feed bears? NO. Try to get a close up of a horny (in both senses) elk during the rut? Verboten. Get near a bear cub? Oh HELL NO.  The buffalo woman was aware of all of the warnings to keep away from the animals, “but thought it was OK because other people were nearby,” Well there you go.  I guess her mom never laid that old parental saw on her; “If your friends jumped off the bridge…”  And so she got six yards from the animal and then went all in; she turned her back on it.  And to top it all off, this was the 5^th such encounter with tatanka this year.  It’s bad enough to be the first but how clueless can you be when you’re the fifth?  When the wife heard about this story she admonished me not to try that.  “Well no shit.  Why do you think I dropped all that money on a 600 mm. lens?”

As the vacation planner I suppose that full disclosure is part of my duty.  So I’ve got to be that guy to tell the wife about the official park warnings about bears and about bear repellent.  There’s the obvious stuff about not getting within 100 yards of a bear, staying away from cubs and not hiking alone.  Ah but then it gets better.  You’re admonished to stay clear of a fresh kill.  If you spot an aggressive looking bear don’t act afraid.  My favorite though is if the bear charges don’t run – ha.  This is where the bear repellent comes in.  You’re basically given the old Battle of Bunker Hill order; don’t shoot until you see the whites of its, uhh, teeth.  A company called Sabre touts its product as having the maximum industry range of 35 feet, which as you football fans know is just a smidge over 10 yards, which a running back covers in no time flat and a bear covers in less than no time flat.  So the plan is; bear charges, you hang fire until you can smell his breath, then you spray, hope for the best and then drop into a fetal position and start praying like the repentant sinner that you are. 

I’ve debated just not telling her any of this so she won’t either cower in the cabin or cancel the trip altogether.  But I guess it would be bad form to not give her the survival tools and then come home sans wife and tell her children that mom won’t be coming home; she was an hors d'oeuvre.  She’s already had a few misgivings with the little that she already knows.  After hearing about the half consumed man she gave me that “what the fuck look.” 

 “Are you sure about this? Are we safe?  I can see the headline now; senior couple from California mauled by bear in Yellowstone; they are dead. 

And as if animals aren’t enough the wife just told me about a flood on the border of Nevada and Arizona that took some lives. 

“I hope we’re not going to have a flood.”

I offered that “We're going in the opposite direction but if it makes you feel better I can see if we have room in the car for an ark; or the grandchildren’s floaties.” 

Then again when she frets about the natural dangers of Yellowstone I fall back on the reminder that every day we face the danger of the dumbest, most dangerous animal on the planet – people.