Halien

When our kids were young, I took my family camping on a small island. On one side, facing the mainland, it was marshy but was a great place to photograph wildlife. I was taking my son through a trail, and he suddenly had to go. Stinging in the bushes, I realized that my legs were suddenly itching intensley. Thousands of chiggers. Thankfully, my wife came prepared with the chemicals we needed to get rid of them before my son lost it.

My brother and I were camping once in Montana, near Glacier. We took a hike to a valley for fishing. On the way, a young guy ran past us, heading in the opposite direction, screaming frantically, "Bear .... Bear ...." Of course, we turned and followed the guy, also running frantically. I have a fused ankle, so my brother kept slowing down to help me along. I noticed that my prother was digging frantically into his back every chance he got. We could hear a bear growling and huffing. My brother started pulling ham out of his pack, throwing it behind, then granola bars and everything in his pack. We reached a plateau, with a really steep boulder cliff to the side, and never saw the bear, so we assumed that he stopped for the ham. We waited a couple of hours, and decided to go back to the campsite (where his truck was parked), and hiked a few miles. Didn't realize that he had thrown his keys also, in his urgency. By the time we got back to the campsite, with the keys, it was 30 degrees, and after midnight.