Da Bears

First, for some history.  When I was just a wee tike my parents used to bring me to the Smokey Mountains on vacation to camp.  Looking back I think this was because being out in the wilderness was considered wholesome and the vacation was relatively cheap.  We would drive up and down the mountain roads until we would come upon several cars pulled over at the side.  Since the cars ahead of us pulled over we would also pull over and nine times out of ten there would be a bear on the side of the road.  We would all point and take pictures with our brownie cameras that we rarely had the film developed and would then move on until the next traffic jam.  At that time if you didn't want to drive around the mountains to spot a bear you could always pull over to the many Smokey Mountain souvenir shops that had one or two caged up behind the shop.  As I got older seeing bears became less and less frequent due to hunters poaching them for their gall bladder's that I think at the time were equivalent to Chinese Viagra and they sold for considerable dollars.  In fact, on several trips Huli and I would drive the same mountain roads that I was on as little boy and guess what?  No bears!  Well today was different.  Today we hit the trifecta using the horse racing vernacular.  Not far from where some our ashes will be spread one day (assuming Gabe and Jason carry out our wishes) we saw a small bear wondering around in a field and we excitedly started taking pictures.  Then we saw the momma and one of the other siblings in a tree.  Three bears in one sighting.  All was right with the world.

After leaving the mountains we stopped at a store to buy some firewood.  Found out the man who owned the store retired from Frito Lay in Goshen, Indiana two years ago and bought this store.  He specializes in stocking cabins with groceries for $24.99 per shopping trip.  He has people that go shopping at a variety of stores and buys whatever you want and puts it away into your cupboards or refrigerator before you arrive,  He has five delivery trucks that keep busy doing this and also runs a store housed in a log cabin with a 2800 square foot house above the store.  I ask how the heck he wound up in Townsend, Tennessee from Goshen, Indiana.  He said when others have ask him the same question he asks them to turn around and look up.  The view you see is the Smokey Mountains similar to some of our pictures below.  We bought fire wood for one camp fire and he basically loaded our truck up.  He said he was giving us the Indiana Special.  

PS.  Gabe we enjoyed Hold On by the Alabama Shakers.

 Here are the pictures from our mountain drive through the Smokies today.  It was overcast all day but still a very nice day.

 This is the first bear we saw and were excited to see this one.

It's hard to tell it but the two black spots are two bears up in the tree.  The mother bear is the one higher up but she came down first.

Momma's down

Baby is on his way down

These pictures are from later that night when we were roasting hot dogs over the camp fire.  It got down into the 50's by the time these pictures were taken.  Tanner is in one of the chairs between two blankets where he stayed for two hours. 

Notice how there are four chairs and we aren't expecting company.  No,  our dogs aren't spoiled or anything.



These picture are taken of a flower we have on the picnic table that has four solar birds in it that light up at night.  I didn't use the flash so the only things you see are the things that light up.