Bear Cub Cameo

When our friends, Vickie and Ken, aren't living down the road from my parents in D.C., they can be found just a valley over from us at their Strawberry Creek ranch.

From their witty word plays to their exciting safari-like vehicles to the magic rocks in their creek, Vickie and Ken are a favorite among everyone in our house. Zoey, who couldn't remember where the bathroom was in our place in San Francisco, can navigate their house, their fields, and apparently their fridge, like she's been living there forever, and she's only visited once.

While my parents were in town, we drove over to Paradise valley for a visit with Vickie and Ken. The kids could hardly wait to pile out of the car and mine for the special fairy rocks that somehow make their way into the stream in front of their house. (Somehow might have something to do with someone named Vickie stocking the creek.)

The magic creek.

As if the little table for two on the porch, set just for the girls' dining pleasure and enhanced by the backdrop of the Paradise Valley, as well as the relentlessly punny interchanges between Stella and Ken weren't enough excitement, Stella lost her front tooth in the middle of Vickie's elegantly simple Silver Palate-style lunch.

The transformation to some new and unknown phase was immediate.

After lunch, we headed out for a ride in the Mule four-wheel-drive thing up to a trail with a normally endlessly spectacular view, muted this time by the smoke from the wildfires that kept the mountains hidden under their miniscule but powerful ashes.

The hike offered a chance to level the playing field of banter, amongst other things.

 

Knee-deep in a hole, and not metaphorically.

Once we made our way back down to the house, my mom and I went with Vickie to explore a barn from the 1880's, leaving Stella and Zoey to play in the mini Mule.

Ten minutes later as we emerged from the barn, Stella ran at us screaming, "emergency emergency!" Since Zoey was right behind her, and both of them were beaming, I didn't take her cry too much to heart.

"I just had a dream of my life fulfilled! I saw a mother bear and her cubs!"

Seems Stella and Zoey drove their little mini Mule right up to a mother bear and her cubs, who promptly scaled two trees, one of them quickly climbing down from her lonely outpost so as to shimmy up with her sibling.

While the bear's mother was there to protect them, I was off in an episode of 'This Old House,' and my own cubs fended for themselves. They sure did a good job of it though.

Just as we were piecing together Stella and Zoey's bear story, Chris, Ken and my dad came down from the mountain, announcing that they'd just seen a black bear 'as big as a house' and her cubs, which my dad, our photographer, managed to capture on film.

Later that night, after burgers and ice cream, the tooth fairy visited our house.

What she really wanted to congratulate Stella (and Zoey) on was their level-headed approach to to the great bear encounter. But she stuck with the tooth.