Jack felt his eye widen at the idea of meeting a hungry bear just up from hibernation. It took a moment for the memory of his Uncle telling him about bears last summer to penetrate, but when it did he piped up "Yeah, but they'd rather leave us alone. As long as we're careful with the food waste - which Allison definitely will be at camp - we'll be fine. Besides, Uncle 'n me have got bear bells." He bounced up and down a bit jangling the bells attached to his pack wildly before he settled the bag back to the asphalt. "D'you have any extra ones Uncle Danny?" Pretty sure his uncle always had extras in his truck, since part of his job was to hand out the 'Canada Parks' emblazoned bells to as many hikers as possible. Even a government organization wasn't above a bit of easy advertising, the safety was a bonus.

Grinning broadly as his uncle nodded and opened the truck to retrieve a few more bells Danny shifted the angle of his smile to the new woman, Mellie. Her owl on top of the truck was eyeing up the squirrel in Danny's hood, but a round of ear piercing chittering - that had Jack covering his ears - put an end to that, at least temporarily.

~~~

Danny nodded to Tyko as he offered the bear bells to the other man and Mellie, "Yeah, go ahead and bring it. I've got a rifle at camp, but it's not a bad idea to have one with us now. Especially since we might not make it there before dark."

He shouldered his pack, locked the truck, and started across the blacktop to Mellie's vehicle. They would have a few minutes to check through what she'd brought if they needed to, but he had a hunch they would be ready to leave the parkinglot within the next 20 minutes. Good thing too, since they'd be cutting it awfully close to full dark at this point.