Went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for our vacation this past July. We were on the west side of the state, my grandparents live in the town of Ironwood. When you are around Ironwood you are not in BFE, but there are a whole lot less people compared to the lower east side.
My father, brother, and I wanted to go brook trout fishing. My father was raised in the U.P. so he knows of rivers in back country. One river we visited separated 2 ski hills. This spot was pretty secluded, not a ton of action people wise around here. We parked our car and started truckin to the river. Now before this trip, around 4th of July, I decided to play foot ball with flip-flops on. That ended in a sprained ankle. My ankle was still hella lame. Now the river was right next to us, but the grass and weeds were so over grown around this river. I didn't want to hobble around this tall grass without being able to see the ground. My father thought that further up this road was a bridge that we could fish from. Dad and bro didn't feel like walking, so I did by myself. Here I go walking down this dirt road to a curve, I just assume that around the curve would be the bridge. Nope, just another curve. I walk to that and find a field. I think I see a old road through the field, so I start truckin. Boom, found the old road, followed it, found the old bridge. Bridge was so rotted. I only walked on one side, and that was pretty stupid. I-beams were sturdy, wood beams could have been takin apart by hand. I was probably 20 feet above the river. Drowned my spinner a few times and had no takers. There was no way my bunk ankle was working down to the water.
Well time to walk back to dad and bro. While I was walking I noticed piles of crap. I saw other piles of crap in the field before this bridge, but I just assumed that these were from some guy and his dog. On this road I realize that there are actually a lot of crap piles. I now know that these have to be from a bear. It is mid day, so plenty bright outside. I start to get paranoid. I switch my fishing pole to my left had, and I pick up a good sized rock (there are a ton of rocks on this road). I walk for a second and spin around to check my back. I know that there is no way to run from something with my gimp ankle, I mean if adrenaline kicked in I might have ran, but I didn't want to find that out the hard way. I make it to the road and walk back to my family.
My father and brother are exactly were I left them. Walking from a different way allows me to see this small catwalk bridge that is over the river. I make it through the weeds to this bridge, and it is covered in bear crap. Crap that is explained in that funny sign. Full of berries and stuff. This crap is hella fresh. We didn't see a bear during that trip, but they were for sure around us.
My story is not that exciting because of no bear sightings, but if I could only express how my paranoia became off the hook. If someone was sitting in the bushes they would have laughed out lout at me walking with a limp and spinning around to check my backside every 3 minutes.
Sometime that day Bigfoot posted a funny story about some stupid guy he was watching.
