Tonight we left the fold of family and friends and went out for some quiet time.  The fun thing about camping, my dear friend says - is that restaurants have fridges and all the food you need....they even have cold drinks AND hot drinks.  Forget this brickette shit.......I want a steak on a flamed grille! And a BLENDED mojito!!

After dinner we drove up to the top of SilverStar mountain.....ABC cranked the whole way.....LONG LIVE THE 80's!!!!   to have a drink mountain top.   My friend knows all the cool places to go!

When we drove into the parking lot he had to drive behind some buildings.  I was just along for the ride....but he must have known something becuase  we saw a HUGE BLACK BEAR!!!  Of course I was so excited that I couldn't keep my camera steady to save my life......and just took two really blurry photos.  I could however, say that it's a sasquatch and you could easily see that I could be right.....Bears were obviously an ongoing issue as the bar had stairs and a big yellow iron gate around it.  I guess the bears haven't figured out the latches yet.

Post drink at the funky bar/hotel....we drove 1/4 of the way back down the mountain, I saw a beautiful bambi buck with velveteen antlers.  He was gorgeous.

I pointed out a fabulous lookout spot and we parked for the night.  We crawled into the back of the truck and slept there!!  I was a little panicked at first (yes city girl - you CAN sleep on a mountain top!) becuase I left an open package of beef jerky (yes the city girl eats beef jerky.....and pork rinds too!) in the front of the truck.....I remember hearing stories from my god parents (avid outdoors people) about bears breaking into cars for mcdonald's wrappers...we didn't think to bring a phone into the back under the cap with us......altho i did have my dollar store LED flashlight which totally came in handy for nest making 101.......

I decided before I slept that I was NOT getting out of the truck all night.  A great idea - but the execution I think needed to be a little more thought out (aka bring the phone in case and leave the food at home and not in the truck...deal with the fact that you have to pee and won't until sunrise)

I was certainly grateful in the morning that we were undisturbed, still intact and not a crunchy snack that was chewy in the middle for some grizzly.   I was also grateful for my fabulous nest making skills becuase on a mountain top - it went down to 6 degrees!  Once I got over my fear - or I experienced an adrenaline crash, I had an amazing night sleep....in the fresh air with the most glorious view of the natural world sans any buildings in the morning.