The Obsessed Programmer

Yesterday was the first day of summer, and let me tell you, it’s going to be a good one.

In fact, since it got warm enough to start playing outside, I’ve learned to wakeboard, almost collapsed from heat exhaustion, biked some of the best single-track in North America, almost got eaten by a bear, thrown a volleyball barbecue and had 30-some people show up, almost got my friend Katy killed in a waterfall, rode a four-wheeler (ATV) for the first time, and played some of the best soccer in my life.

Yes, the days are just packed.

Maybe a few of those items deserve a more lengthy explanation.

Almost got eaten by a bear

I went with my roommate and some friends to stay at a cabin in Island Park, ID over the long Memorial Day weekend. One day we decided to go to Yellowstone to see the geysers, etc.

On our way out of the park, traffic was backed up for hundreds of yards for no apparent reason. As we inched forward, we eventually saw that there was a large grizzly bear lumbering through the trees right by the road. It was pretty funny to watch the dozen or so tourists/photographers who were inching through the woods towards the bear. It was funnier to see them all run when the bear turned and started lumbering towards them.

All this time, I was sitting up on the back of my roommate’s open convertible, trying to get some good pictures of the bear (from a safe distance, obviously). As traffic moved forward, I was getting better and better pictures of the bear. It came out of the woods and started walking alongside the road, about 20 feet out. Then it turned towards us, zeroed in on our car, and started running towards us.

I’m thinking, “I’m getting the best pictures EVER! Nobody’s going to believe this!” Meanwhile, my roommate was thinking, “I’m going to get eaten by a bear. I’m going to get eaten by a bear!” When the bear reached the other lane of the road, my roommate slammed his car into gear and whipped out onto the shoulder, putting a big SUV between our open convertible and the bear.

I don’t see what the big deal was. After all, Jenna was sitting on my left; she would’ve been eaten first, not me.

Almost got my friend Katy killed in a waterfall

Well, that trip to Idaho was very eventful. One tourist destination near Island Park is a set of waterfalls. The upper falls are gorgeous, and we got some great pictures. The lower falls look even better, but the nearest lookout point is a mile or two away, at the top of a seemingly endless hill of volcanic boulders.

Well, I was going in for a better picture. Katy and I started making our way down the extraordinarily steep wall of volcanic rock to where we could get a better picture of the falls. The perfect spot was just to the right of the waterfall. We could see from our vantage-point that there was a steep, shrubby hill that terminated in a 30′ cliff dropping into the certain death of the waterfall. After the volcanic rock, we would walk along a dirt path running about 10′ uphill from, and parallel to, the Cliff of Doom. Partway along the path, I looked back.

I saw Katy on her stomach, sliding downhill out of control toward certain death.

Visions of explaining this to her parents flashed through my mind. I almost lost it. You should have heard me yelling, “WHOAH! WHOAH! WHOAH! STOP!” She managed to grab onto some vegetation and stop herself, maybe about 3′ away from falling off the cliff into the worst part of the waterfall.

She wasn’t even shaken up.

I could barely walk after that. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I don’t think Katy understood what she was sliding toward. In fact, once we got to the lookout point right by the waterfall (where I did in fact get an excellent panorama), she took off her shoes and stood on a rock in the moving water, where it was just a few inches deep, to cool off. I couldn’t take it, I had to make her get out of the water. What would have happened had she slipped there?

Anyway, we both made it back alive. So hey, no harm done.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.