Reflections of My Travel

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Today we actually slept in a little, which was very nice. Mike went to work around 10:00 so the three of us decided to go out in search of foliage. We headed south toward Ellicotvile, NY (Jenny had been informed about a big fall festival going on there. We stopped in on it but it was mostly venders so we didn’t stay long.). We then found some little back roads and made our way down to Allegheny State Park. We saw some absolutely breathtaking foliage! On the way out, we came upon several cars stopped on the side of the road, which I decided meant there was a bear. I was correct. We stopped and got out and walked back to the car behind us and there he was – an enormous black bear (boy guessed appx 300lbs)about 30′ away and walking toward us! He stopped at a tree about 25′ feet away and looked at us all for a minute before turning and walking back into the woods. I got some pretty good video, and one decent still shot. We weren’t too worried because we figured for sure we could outrun the old people who’s car we were standing at. It was exciting. That’s the second wild bear sighting I’ve had (the other was at Cades Cove in TN, stood under a tree with one big bear eating acorns up in the limbs and then saw a momma and two cubs walking along about 50′ feet away). We then headed back toward Buffalo. We had promised Jenny and Mike that we would pretend to be young and social (quite a stretch for us) one night while we were there so when Mike got home, we started getting ready. We went to some bar. It was about like a bar. My boy and I had one drink apiece to be sociable. We stayed there until about 02:00 and went back to their apartment for an unsuccessful (in that Randal and I abstained and Mike was upset over that) drinking game. We didn’t get to sleep until about 05:30! That’s like 7.5 hours past my bedtime!!!!