Birthday Parties & Wildlife In Van Buren County Arkansas
I don’t have too many “bad” weekends, and this past one certainly fell into the “great” category! My wife and I spent the weekend with her aunt and uncle at their cabin in Van Buren county, right here in good old Arkansas. Also joining us was my mother-in-law and another of my wife’s aunts. We had all gathered at the cabin to attend a Saturday night birthday party for one of the locals.
I tell ya…it’s just hard to beat a weekend with good friends/family! The second best part of the weekend is that I think we saw “maybe” two vehicles pass in front of the cabin the whole weekend! The running joke whenever a vehicle finally does drive by…..someone says, “damn traffic”!
So Saturday night, we went to this birthday party for a really cool guy that lives in the area. We met him, (Kenneth) & his wife Betty, last year when riding 4-wheelers with my wife’s aunt and uncle. We ended up buying a sweet 66 Mustang from Kenneth and have been great friends ever since. They’re super-nice people that would just do anything for you! We’re lucky to have so many wonderful friends like this.
Sunday was definitely a day of rest. We stayed out “way” past my bedtime Saturday night! My wife and I did get out and about on the 4-wheelers Sunday afternoon. We decided to take a little ride around her uncle’s property. We followed a trail down near a creek bed that was nothing but sheer solid rock, with a small pool of water here and there. My wife was leading, (knocking down all the spider webs!), and I was following about 40 yards behind, (bitching about all the webs she missed 
). I saw her slow down and begin to look very intently at the creek bed. I wondered what she saw, and then she started pointing at something? Wildlife is certainly abundant in the area and I assumed it was probably a deer. I got closer to her and she continued to point, but I couldn’t see what it was? Finally I got right up behind her and she said, “do you see that bear!!!” At that moment, I saw just the rear-end of a big, furry black bear running off into a nearby field! What an amazing sight! The bear had been laying in the rocky creekbed, presumably sleeping on the nice cool, shady rocks. He never looked up until she was probably 25 yards away! Even then, he got in no real hurry to leave. By the time I got up there, he had decided it was time to leave and ran away.
We’re well aware of the bear in the area, but I had only seen them in pictures. I have to say it’s quite an experience to be that close to a black bear in the wild! Yes…I know they’re probably just as scared of us as we are of them…..but when you’re that close to one in the wild it still gives you goosebumps!
So…to say the weekend was exciting would be an understatement. It would have been a great time, regardless of whether we’d seen the bear…but that certainly did top things off for us. My wife and I will remember that for the rest of our lives!
