Source note: Local copy of a Summer Into AI 2026 submission originally published on Substack. Screenshots, video, and audio found in the post body are mirrored locally when publicly accessible; profile and avatar images are intentionally not copied. Read the canonical post.
For the Fourth of July, Ade wanted to host a big family party, and my father-in-law brought her two go-karts for the occasion. Once those go-karts were unloaded, the next project was obvious: they needed a trail.
Grandpa cut her a path through the long grass in front of the house while Adam climbed onto the orange Kubota and set out to carve a racetrack through the woods.
For a while, everything was fine. The tractor pushed through brush, the trail started taking shape, and the sound of the engine rumbled through the trees.
Then he looked to the side.
A few feet away, standing in the woods, was a bear.
Not across the property. Not far enough away to become the kind of story you tell later with a safe amount of distance. A few feet.
Adam stopped.
The bear stopped.
For about ten seconds, they stared at each other while the tractor idled between them like it also understood the situation had changed. I imagine both of them were doing the same calculation: Who is supposed to move first?
The bear decided.
It ran up a tree at what seemed like ten feet per second.
Adam decided immediately after that, and his decision was to find out exactly how fast an orange Kubota can go.
Meanwhile, I was sitting on the back deck with my mom when I saw the tractor fly down the access road like it had just remembered it left the stove on.
I remember thinking, “Wow, that seems fast.”
A minute later, Adam pulled up to the porch, pale and wide-eyed, and told us what had happened. When the bear bolted up the tree, he wasted no time heading straight for the house.
The reasonable thing would have been to stay on the deck, respect nature, and let the bear have the woods.
That is not what we did.
Instead, Adam, his brother Casey, my dad James, our daughter Ade, and I headed back out to look for it, with a couple of guns because, I mean, there was a bear. At first, it felt exciting, like we were following the thread of an adventure. Then, partway out, the trees started to feel closer, the trail felt quieter, and I think it hit all of us at once that walking toward the bear might not have been our smartest idea.
But by then, Ade was watching the woods.
And then she spotted him.
High in a tree, there he was, stretched out and relaxing like none of this had anything to do with him. He looked down at us. We looked up at him. We took pictures, stayed long enough to confirm that yes, there really was a bear in the tree, and then everyone agreed that was enough wilderness investigation for one day.
Needless to say, the go-kart trail through the woods is closed for the season.
And because apparently this is how stories work around here now, I started turning it into Bearly Escaped: Tractor Panic Simulator.
The concept is simple: you’re driving a tractor, carving out a go-kart trail through the woods, when the forest throws a wrench in your plans. A bear appears, the tractor idles, panic sets in, and suddenly your only goal is to make it back home by pushing through mud, brush, obstacles, and every questionable decision along the way.
Sometimes the Fourth of July gives you fireworks. Sometimes it gives you a bear in a tree and a tractor with survival instincts
Play it here! Bearly Escaped: Tractor Panic Simulator
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Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://kadygodfrey.substack.com/p/the-bear-the-tractor-and-the-go-kart.