Good Times In Reno

By Dane Jackson

I am in Reno right now and I have been here for 10 days and I have 4 days left. I just moved into Jason’s condo today in downtown Reno right by the playpark. We have paddled here a bit, we went to the South Fork of the American last weekend. We also paddled at Floriston ( A little run about 15 minutes from Jason’s house) a couple times. So anyways, there is a lot of bears around Jason’s house, like a lot of bears (Just incase you are confused Jason has a Condo in downtown Reno, and he has a house about 10 miles out of Reno). Anyways, we needed some things from his house to come into the condo so we can sleep in it. Karen and I (Jason’s mom) went to the house to get the stuff and Jason stayed back to do some school. We get there, load up the stuff, and in the middle of loading up we see one of the trashcans laying on the ground empty. This is nighttime by the way. So Karen asks me too bring it up for her, and on the way walking down Karen jokingly says "Make sure there is nothing with teeth and claws."

Funny, but when we are pulling out about 5 minutes later, we see the trash bag on the ground a couple feet away. Karen says she will go get it and when she is getting out she again jokingly says "Honk the horn if you see a bear." I know she is joking but as she picks up the trash and starts walking towards the trashcan by the house I have my hand on the steering wheel anyways. Then this BIG friggin’ bear climbs down the tree right above where the trash was and where Karen was! As soon as I saw the bear I honked the horn a ton of times. Karen told me that as soon as she heard the honks she thought that I was messing with her until she saw the bear! I was pretty freaked out because I was in the car with Karen on the driveway, the driver’s door open, and the bear looking right at me. When Karen got in, it sat right next to the tree for a couple minutes. I tried to film it but as soon as I got the camera ready it ran away. But what kind of freaked me out even more was that the bear could have been in the trashcan when I got it! But luckily it wasn’t. Another thing neither of us get, is why the bear didn’t jump down as soon as Karen messed with it’s food, another thing that we got really lucky on. But we are okay. Now the joke for us from now on in the car is: "Honk the horn if you see a bear." Ha ha. Well I hope you liked my update and we will see you on the river,

Dane