Dinner for two please

It's kind of amazing that the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness Area is one of the most visited wilderness areas in Oregon because we crossed paths with virtually no other humans during our time there. Clearly, the non-human animals were unprepared to share their space. We deemed this adventure our "invisible animal trip." What does this mean? Well, let me tell you...

While I was leading the way down the narrow path on one of our hikes, my big, scary footsteps were enough to send a big old brown bear packing, or at least that's what I'm pretty sure it was from the blur of it's backside. A coyote peed about two inches away from the front door of our tent one night - denoted by the smell, puddle size, and sleuth nature I know coyotes to have. (Tanya, initially, thought it was me. But no, even in the middle of the night when I'm cold and half awake, I do not pee two inches away from the tent door thank you very much.) Last, but not least a crazy big elk came galloping at us from the dense trees while we were calmly watching the sunset all of twenty feet away.

The Invisible Elk.

I stopped talking to Tanya in mid-sentence as I picked up the distant sounds of heavy, solid feet coming at us and quickly started singing...loudly. The tension rose and as we both sang our tuneless hearts out waiting for the inevitable body to come crashing out from the greenery, it stopped...changed direction and galloped away. Hence, the invisible elk.

We never really saw any of them, but they were there. It was awesome (though I have to admit I had trouble sleeping after being charged by an invisible elk:)