Bear-y Scary

Okay, so it wasn't that scary, and that's a corny way to write a title, but it fits. I went camping in Mammoth Lakes a couple weekends ago. We almost got eaten by a bear. Seriously. Well, we were close enough to have gotten eaten by the bear, but really it was more interested in the other food around the campground. I'll try to paint a picture of what happened. P&AF and I spent the entire day at the Mammoth Lakes Brews and Blues Festival. I won't lie; I think we were both mainly there for the brews, though the blues were good too. So combine the altitude with lots of excellent microbrews, and you had two rather inebriated people making their way back to their campsite at the end of the day. Things got pretty crazy right away when we got back. P&AF got a nice fire going, and a storm came up. I was in heaven; we just don't get enough storms here in the good old Bay Area for me. Some kid from the campsite next to ours walked by and asked if the bear had crushed our tent. Considering the fact that the tent was, in fact, standing as it had been when we left, we just answered, "No," and thought it was a little bizarre. I mean, I know the tent is small, but did he really think that the bear had crushed it? The next thing we knew, the adult at the campsite next to ours told us that the bear had visited our campsite and tent earlier in the day, but he had made his way onto bigger and better things. So we were sitting there enjoying the fire and the storm, when all of a sudden aforementioned adult starts yelling, "BEAR! BEAR! BEAR!" And we look over to see one guy walking fairly close behind a rather large bear, with another guy and a group of about 10 kids aged 8-17 further back yelling and throwing rocks at the bear. The bear took off from them to the campsite directly in front of ours. It then made a nice little 90 degree turn and headed straight for us. Now possibly the great beer had something to do with it, but P&AF and I just sort of sat there and watched the whole thing happen. I think I muttered something about being scared or wondering whether we should move or not, but he just told me that it'd be fine and to just stay put. So we did. And the bear (I think they called him Einstein) came up to our tent, then sniffed around the picnic table, maybe 10 feet from us, then moved on to the box of wood sitting next to us, probably only 2-5 feet away from us, and then jogged on over to the campsite across from ours, where an abundance of food was just sitting out waiting for him. I never thought I would ever be that close to a bear. The group chasing the bear around with rocks came over near our campsite afterwards, all a little awestruck that we didn't move through the entire event. Here's a little picture of our campsite, just for reference as to how far from Einstein the bear we really were. We were sitting just behind the fire (not where we actually are in this picture, but opposite,) and the bear was sniffing around the cardboard by the trees. It was crazy!

As a sidenote, we also almost got struck by lightning immediately following the bear incident. Really, I almost had a heart attack. I think the beer might have saved my life, and that's not the first time. So, I guess the moral of the story is that there are people who might tell you that beer and bears don't mix, but I personally think it's a great combination.