Well yesterday was kind of a wild hot mess. Mostly disappointing but, quite interesting to say the least. After doing a few geocaches, I randomly decided to attempt to bike the 56 miles to Philadelphia for fun. It was fun. Mostly. Had I actually left at a normal time early in the day, this would have definitely been possible.

I made several critical errors. I left stupidly late, and my phone died. Not only that, but now my phone doesn't turn on and I'm forced to use an ancient phone with a ton of random issues.

So yeah, I did have a ton of pictures, but they didn't back up on my Google account. I was so prepared to have a ton of content man.

I guess it's just memories now. Although, I did gather a few things from the journey. I'll post about that later, just wanna at least dump some emotion and thoughts out. Ugh.

Also, my part time job closed for the day, so couldn't even make some extra money. Yikes. Just yikes.

The road back was long dark and sketchy. Rain, animals, cars, just pretty unpleasant. I did learn a lot of random stuff though, I will go on a long journey again, this time I'll hopefully be more ready.

I sort of knew that it wasn't the greatest idea to try and make this journey the way I did. I just wanted to live a little I guess.

Da bear?

I believe I went approximately 70 freaking miles for my total journey. The literal only reason I turned back for home was because I'm fairly sure I saw a damn bear on the trail. No more than MAXIMUM sixty feet although I believe it was significantly closer.

I was used to seeing deer and at night they get pretty spooky and the jump scares they can provide are incredible. But this figure I saw dart onto, and then quickly off of, the trail was eerily dark. Even though it was night my eyes were adjusted. Even at night deer don't appear THAT dark. Also, this figure was low to the ground and seemed to surely move on all fours. I guess deer do too but, this just felt different. The figure moved much more like a big sort of crawl. It did move fast and was clearly spooked but I definitely identified a crawl sort of motion.

The figure seemed pretty damn big too. Not like a grizzly but I would guess it weighed like 160-180 pounds. But who knows it all happened quite fast.

In addition to the size, color, it's stature and the way it moved, I also did not hear ANY sort of click clack of a deer. The trail is a sort of pavement with tiny sand-like stones I guess. Even on these trails, half the time I will hear those feet.

Not gonna lie I was paranoid about bears and the trail I was on was quite remote and heavily forested. Maybe it was simply fear and paranoia. Alone in the dark, yikes.

But man, this thing moved quick. It was super black, and moved like a monkey honestly like, a thick, less graceful monkey. Almost dog-like you could even say. But way to big for 99 percent of dogs.

I'm just gonna call this a bear encounter man, it was too weird. The thing just crashed into the wilderness. Not sure what made it come onto the trail. Could have been a simple crossing, could have thought I was a deer? My STUPID self did not have much light, and that was insanely dumb.

Perhaps it was dumb but, for some reason bears are not much of a topic in my home state of PA, even though there are very much bears in this state. Black bears who are typically more skittish and reserved than like a grizzly or brown, but still they are freaking bears and I should have like actually thought of this.

This video is from just last September. This is in the suburbs, greater Philly area. Very much roughly where I was traveling.

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In fact, a simple google search of 'black bears Philadelphia area' brings up a lot more articles than I would have guessed.

This video was from just back in June! Watching this video, and how the thing scurries, I believe more than I ever that I ran into (not literally) a bear last night!

Really, there are tons of articles about bears around Philly and the state in general. Yikes.

But yeah, it basically slid/hopped onto the trail and then quickly jumped back into the forest.

Holy crap man I guess I'll never know for certain but I feel 82 percent confident it was a damn bear.

Can't say for certain but I believe I was roughly where I put the star when I saw the bear (probably lol).

Man, I can't tell you how fast I biked the other way. I must have been Lance Armstrong for like 30 seconds. I was OUT!

A short visual summary of this encounter through gifs and a video.

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True fear man. Even small deer stand like, upright. This was a super black figure low to the ground moving like a crawl like I said. Rather big but not like some 400+ pounder or anything.

It's a shame no other pictures got saved. My stupid power button doesn't work. Ugh. The phone barely supports many modern apps. Gonna have to make do with the browser in many ways or just not have some apps, period.

Oh well, I had an interesting, mostly fun experience. Got stories and some memories.

Next trip I will be much more prepared and a bit wiser as well.