  In the land of the desert heat, I try hard to get up and get out for my daily run before the heat of the day is upon me. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you feel about it, myself and the rest of the population of Big Bend all have the same idea.
By "the population of Big Bend" I mean that which is animal, but non-human. In other words, the animal kingdom seems to be out in full force in the early morning. My goal was 6 miles this morning, 3 miles out in a single direction, and then back again. Pretty simple, right? About 1 1/2 miles from my house on the return trip, I noticed a large, moving, black object on the road about 150 yards in front of me.
Mind you, the road splays out in a long straightaway at this point, and visibility is at least 1/2 mile. Don't ask me where my mind was but I can assure you it was somewhere amongst its typical running ramblings, and not in the present moment and the road in front of me. A bear! A bear? A large black bear loping in my direction. The encounter was brief, the glimpse fleeting, the moments over before I wanted them to be. In the low sun of the early morning, I could see the tips of the bear's back hair glowing with light. I watched the bear lope in apparent gangliness, long arms and legs splaying about, though at the same time noting just how powerful the creature appeared.
The bear never gave June and I a passing glance, and I have to say I felt a little snubbed. June, however, was quite intrigued. She whined and danced like she wanted to play with the bear and I could only assume she had never seen one before. As quickly as the bear appeared in my vision, it climbed down off the road and disappeared into the brush. Just a regular day in paradise... 
