The Bonneville Bear Tim McCarty   © Copyright 2026 by Tim McCarty

Paw prints on tailgate.  Photo by the author.

Once we made that decision, all the pieces fell into place and, just in making that decision, we finally saw a little light in my mom’s eyes. We flew to NW Florida with my mother, bought a new home in the area where my mother had lived before, close to some of her friends, and started getting organized to move.

While some items were able to be shipped, we did not really ever consider shipping our vehicle any further than Seattle, preferring to drive it across the country the rest of the way to create a type of big road trip adventure! My mom was not keen on that idea so, after relocating our three dogs, a yellow lab and two dachshunds, to our new home and ensuring the new home was in order, we built a temporary fence to make it easier for my mom to watch the dogs, who she had come to love! Oh, and we were able to purchase a larger than average recliner/chair so that my mom and the two doxies could all sit together! Finally, satisfied my mom was doing much better and had a firm handle on the new house and the dogs, my wife and I flew up to Seattle, where our truck was now located, and began the long drive towards NW Florida!

Before flying back up to Seattle to pick up our truck and begin driving, we had a long talk with my mom so she would understand that we had no exact idea when we would arrive back in NW Florida! However, we assured her we would stay in touch and call her with daily updates on our location, plans and so forth.

Our first destination was Boise, Idaho, where my wife’s son and his family lived. Boise is a rather large community, which was a bit new to us, having lived in various communities in SE Alaska, all of them combined not nearing the population of Boise! We had initially planned on spending about a week in Boise, but were having such a great visit along with lots of exploring around the area, that before we realized it, we were approaching the end of our second week! What great memories we created! But it was time to move on so we started planning our route to our next destination! I believe it was her son who suggested we may be interested in stopping and spending the night at Bonneville Hot Springs! There were no accomodations at the hot springs but we had plenty of camping gear with us so that sealed the deal! Since it wasn’t a terribly long drive, we could even leave later in the day and reach Bonneville Hot Springs well before dark! Plenty of daylight remaining to set up camp!

As soon as we arrived, we selected what looked like a nice spot. The campground had only a couple of other campers so we were still able to get a good degree of privacy! Not exactly like in Alaska, where we would not see any other people for days, but it was still a nice spot!

We set up our tent and put on our swim suits and headed up a trail designated as “To Springs”. As we were walking along the trail, I had the first major reminder and surprise of life in what we, when living in Alaska, referred to as “down south”, meaning anywhere in the continental United States! About half-way to the springs, we were walking and talking and I went to kick a branch out of the trail. Just before I actually kicked it, the branch started slithering away quickly! We both were completely caught off guard and really shocked! I hadn’t even considered there may be snakes around because I had completely forgotten about snakes! Why? Because in Alaska, there ARE no snakes!

After recovering from that shocker, we continued up the trail, laughing at ourselves! We didn’t even have any idea what type of snake it had been! We reached the springs, went right into the water, and had a fun time just lazing around in the water, talking about the adventure we were on and what we hoped was to come! After about an hour, we headed back down the path towards the tent to change clothes, gather some firewood, and prepare dinner!

As we were getting ready to eat, another camper wondered over and told us that he had been warned about some bears in the area that seemed to be a bit bothersome. He also advised us that it may be safer to sleep in the truck. We thanked him for the “heads up“ and he went on his way. We also noticed shortly after visiting us that he was leaving in a vehicle. We did have a canopy on the back of our truck, and with minimal rearranging, we could easily sleep comfortably.

Needless to say, being from Alaska and taking our boat to many, many isolated places, we were very aware of the danger a bear could present. We had been encouraged to leave a campsite and sleep on our boat by a brown bear one evening, I had been chased off by a black bear when I, riding a horse, wandered into the clearing where she and her cubs were playing, and I have been face to face with a bear, literally within a few feet of one another and, to make matters worse, between her and her cubs while holding my 18 month old daughter! Without much consideration, and realizing how quickly a bear could affect any situation, we broke down our tent, packed up all our gear and reorganized the bed of the truck, moving all food items into the cab of the truck. As darkness came, we stayed by the fire, assuming that would at least somewhat discourage any bears from getting too close. Finally, about 10:00 p.m. or so, we decided we should probably get to sleep and get up at a decent hour and hit the road again!

We climbed into the bed of the truck, closing, but not locking the rear hinged window. As we were just beginning to drift off to sleep, I heard a slight noise so, of course, I just had to raise up and look out the side window to see what it was. Sure enough, it was a mama bear and her two cubs! She was a fair distance away, at the campground dumpster, prying at the dumpster top! She must have had at least some experience because she was able to get the top up and get inside the dumpster! That is when the real noise began! Tossing things around, rattling cans and metal and glass! She was having quite the time, all the while her babies screaming, crying and moaning to try to get their momma to come back to them! Eventually, mama bear climbed back out and herded the babies over towards our truck!

Initially we tried our best to remain completely quiet, but as the mama bear seemed to become a bit more aggressive, we also found it more difficult to remain completely still and silent! They would push on our truck, push and slightly pound on the windows and on the rear hinged window portion of the truck and push pretty hard on the tailgate itself, creating a kind of swaying of the truck! Just as suddenly, they would leave to go exploring, then, before we could even consider getting to sleep, they would return! While we had no weapons, we did have bear mace but were hoping not to have to use it!

Eventually, as mamma bear became more aggressive in her attempts to get into the rear of the truck, where WE were, we had to try a different strategy! When we knew she was right at the back, pushing and banging on the tailgate or the hinged window, I got right up to her face with a really bright flashlight we had and suddenly turned it on! That seemed to startle her and she took off with her babies for a short while. But the calm did not last long…certainly not long enough to get any sleep!

After a while, as she continued her attempts to gain entry, we changed our strategy! When we knew she was at the back hinged window, banging away, shaking and pounding, I would get right up to the window and, when I would suddenly turn on the flashlight directly in her face, I would also scream and roar as though I was a wild animal myself and maybe I was getting tired of her nonsense! Unfortunately, while she would back off for a short while, she would always return, seemingly determined to gain access!

Try as we may, we could NOT figure out WHY she was so determined to get into the back of our truck, especially since she now knew WE were there! We had made sure all the food was in the front of the truck so it made no sense to us, for her to be so determined to get to us in the BACK! Of course, then we started trying to analyze and figure out exactly what she was thinking! We humans think of the front of the truck as, well, the front of the truck. But how does a bear think of it? Was she aware of the food simply being inside of the thing we were also in, the “thing” being what we humans call a truck? Also, did accessing that food, rather than via what we humans would refer to as the front, mean exactly NOTHING to her? She simply wanted IN that big thing we were already inside of and from what direction was of no concern to her!

These random attacks lasted throughout the night, never letting up long enough for us to relax and get any sleep! By early morning slightly before sunrise, she must have tired of her attempts to get at us and left for what we hoped was for good!

Although we believed she had left our immediate area, we felt it would be safer if we waited until it was light enough for us to see better, to ensure she was, in fact, out of the area, or at least out of our sight!

When we felt fairly confident that she had moved on, we exited the back of the truck, taking a very close assessment of our surroundings! A surprise bear rush was NOT something we wanted! Once we felt a bit safe from further attacks, we began reorganizing the truck, moving coolers from the front of the truck to the bed of the truck, and relocating items in the back so that driving wouldn’t create a mess. All the while, we made sure BOTH front doors were open to allow us quick access if needed! We also made sure that while we were reorganizing, only ONE of us was moving items around at a time, the other scanning the area for mama bear!

Once we felt everything was in order, we got in and began the drive out of the camp and back towards the highway, onto our next destination! Once we actually began to drive, we both felt a huge weight lifted from our shoulders and a sigh of relief that had been hours in the coming!

Tired as we both were, it felt really good to be on the road again! After a very short time driving, my wife says, “maybe we should stay in a hotel tonight”! She was right, as usual…and we did!

Although I do enjoy writing and, in the past, I have helped many co-workers with their writings, usually in the form of memos, reports, and so forth, I have never been paid anything for writing. I am only doing it now as a way to keep busy as well as trying to earn some extra income.

We resigned our State of Alaska positions in order to move to Florida to care for my mother. We were both fairly close to earning full retirement. For that reason we did not achieve “full retirement” status and, while in Florida, we started a remodeling business. When my mother passed, we moved to Boise to be near family and started another remodeling business. After about six years in Boise, we had the opportunity to sell our business, which we did. I assumed my wife would want to remain in Boise near family but, yet again, she surprised me! She hoped to relocate to NW Florida but that was when Hurricane Michael hit the area she preferred so she began researching other areas, finally discovering the Lucedale, MS and Wiggins, MS areas.

The majority of my live has been lived in Montana, Alaska, NW Florida, Boise, Idaho and Wiggins, MS.

The wife was born and raised in Alaska and that is where she spent the majority of her life.

We have now retired and live near Wiggins, MS.

I am attaching one photo that I own all rights to. If you look closely, you can see the actual paw prints of the bear on the tailgate! I know I had another with a better, more clear paw print but I cannot seem to locate it. When this photo was taken, cell phones were relatively new and did not have camera capability.