There’s no way I could forget my first day working at B-E. I arrived at the main office sometime around 9 am, only to learn that I had come to the wrong office for training. Christa (our manager) had accidentally texted her cousin Allie instead of myself to let me know that we were meeting at our location down the road. So, when I showed up at the main office, a confused Christa told me to hop in her car and we’d drive down to the other office together. It’s only a mile down the road, but there certainly wasn’t a lack of excitement present in that quick ride. We stopped briefly for Christa to grab a cup of coffee at the Whole Grocer, and as we pulled into our check-in office parking lot, we were met by a very strange scene. A disoriented black bear appeared suddenly from behind a parked car and ran past the car we were in, as Christa and I frantically tried to capture the image on our camera phones. A failed attempt to say the least, we still couldn’t wait to share the news with our co-workers inside. Our owner Frank greeted us at the front door and was the first person we shared our story with, who responded by telling us that he had never had such an experience in the 45+ years he has lived here (Christa then confessed that she had initially thought the bear was a dog, which Frank said he would never let her live down). We are now approaching the end of our summer season, and I have yet to have an experience in Jackson Hole that matches the unusual spontaneity and unforeseen excitement of my first day working at Barker-Ewing.  To this day, I don’t think I could imagine a happier mistake than arriving at the wrong office that fateful morning in the beginning of June…mostly because I can’t imagine a more thrilling way to kick off my first summer in Jackson Hole!