We drove with the windows down as the weather was glorious. The temperature was in the low 70's and that would drop by 2-5 degrees as we neared our destination. A lone coyote was seen in a empty lot in a neighborhood; a shudder passing through me as I knew he was standing over a meal since he was so emboldened to eat in the open We both exhibited great excitement as we pulled into the parking lot and I pulled on a light Camel bak and we headed off to the Ridge Trail. We struck a brisk pace almost double time and the woods cast a shadow that didn't allow for sun glasses so they became an ornament for the apex of my head. The hundreds of acorns crunched beneath my feet and the plunking sound of them bouncing off branches to trunks to branches and then to the ground were constant; as if a light rain of acorns had been forecast for today. All and all it was pleasant more than that it was peaceful. I picked up my pace and my body temperature began a tug of war between a chill and the warmth that is meant for you when the sun pushes through the slowly vanishing leaves of fall. We chose a ridge trail and eventually picked up the pace till we were running.
Running trails requires a combination of several atributes of balance, coordination and luck and I cannot place enough emphasis on luck. Just push the toe of your running shoe a fraction of a millimeter off the root of a hundred year old oak tree as you bound across a small but deep trench in the trail created by the thousands possible millions of gallons of rainwash that has moved through in the last 50 years and the ER physician will say "These stitches should approximate that gash nicely and it shouldn't leave much of a scar at all." The other but mostly positive note is that since you are always looking at the ground for places to push off, place your feet such as the flat rock exposed from the rain over the years, the 150 year-old oak who gives both the root for pushing off and falling acorns that you are sliding though as if you are Neo in the movie Matrix, or perhaps the hard pack earth that you can see through the leaves that have fallen in the early season is that you often run upon scenes in nature unexpectedly. Sometimes deer grazing, sometimes a bobcat, lots of squirrels, rabbits and an occasional snake. (I will say the occasional snake will cause me to immediately work on my vertical jump skills which the height of the jump are direct relation to the size of the snake).
Today was no different in the sense that we did run upon an unexpected guest. We reached the end of our trail and sat down on the bench and decided to have a little snack. I had not eaten lunch before running and I had also brought something for my partner. I had just taken out his morsels when I heard a grunt and some shuffling some distance behind me. I casually turned because I really expected an obese middle aged bow hunter that had been caught slipping through State of Tennessee landing hunting where it is prohibited. It was not. It was a bear. A black bear I suppose. I cannot find an article that states a black bear has been sighted in Davidson County Tennessee in the last 20 years or so on Google search but never the same there he was approximately 50-75 yards or so away. At the time I was holding "BEGGING STIPS" in my hands. Yes the ones on TV where the dogs are thinking Bacon, Bacon, Bacon , Bacon , Bacon, Bacon and are doing somersaults to get said begging strips from the person holding them. My mind immediately went to what alternate did I have to get rid of the strips and my mind thought "I have a biscuit". Biscuit is my dog. When I say "we" in this article it's me and biscuit "We spend a lot of time together. Anyone of you that has spent time with me know why at this point in my life why my dog spends more time with me than anyone else. " Biscuit was more interested at this time in the Begging Strips in my hands than the possibility that there was a black bear 75 yards behind me sniffing the same mind controlling smell of "real bacon. I had just eaten my lunch, a large asian pear. Please remember this as we continue our story. Since we were well beyond the distance in which anyone would hear our bear clawing screams I decided we were going to vamoose. I started packing up (Who packed all this crap? Enough for 17 days!) while trying to keep hold of a dog who wanted to Beggin Strips and still had not noticed the bear. I'm not sure whether to be proud or to express my disdain for my dog but at a more appropriate time of course.
After finally getting everything packed (I could have used that large illegal hunter to sit on the pack to close it) we were on the trail. We eased up the trail another 50 yards and at that point the trail narrows in relation to where we were when we first saw the bear, so the bear would have to use the trail if he decided to tag along. I could not see him anymore. I couldn't decided if this was a good or bad thing. A bear you couldn't see had left the area right? Of course! Except I once saw a bear in the Smokies with my son, Zach, we were no further than 30 or 40 yards away and it was bright green foliage and shadows. We took a picture with our camera and when we got home where we developed the picture we couldn't find the bear in the picture. So maybe it wasn't good I couldn't see the bear. We were going to walk back but I told biscuit let's run. So we ran, turns out not good after eating an extremely large Asian pear. The pear and I determined within half a mile that it did not want to stay friends and the pear was promptly ejected. While this was going on Biscuit looked quite confused about the whole day and I said "I guess if the bear was following us he'd catch us for before the car" he looked at me like the person who finally realizes "There's a bear following us? Did you say car?" Apparently Begging Strips do not cause the same type of gastrointestinal discomfort as Asian pears. I saw him for about 7 seconds before he was gone from sight.
When I emerged from what I thought would be a most glorious day, plastered in dirt, with a growling stomach, and angry legs I was greeted by a smiling Biscuit sitting by my car. The day was perfect!
Disclaimer: I understand that bear sightings in Middle Tennessee are extremely rare. I did not take a picture of it with my cell phone camera, who takes their cell phone hiking in the woods? No I will not show you where I saw the bear, no I will not give you the name of the park, no I will not correspond in email with you and no I will not do an interview with you. Leave me and the bear alone. Yes I am an experienced outdoors man, Marine, hunter, and hiker (I have over 400 miles on the AT in section hikes, I have seen numerous bears so I do know what they look like). Some of the story is fiction. Not all of my blogs are completely true and are exaggerated for effect. The bear sighting is not one of them. Biscuit is also not an exaggeration.