A Beary Memorable Weekend

Labor Day weekend found me in the Great Smoky Mountains twice. I spent a total of over 14 hours there in one weekend. Safe to say, I was in heaven! Saturday morning a few of my new photography buddies got together to walk through Cades Cove to catch the sunrise. The Cove is closed to cars until 10AM two days a week until Labor Day, so we joined over 700 bikers and about 3 other walkers and enjoyed a rather chilly morning in the most beautiful place on earth! One of the more disappointing aspects of the trip was, surprisingly, not the hour that we met, but the amazingly dense fog. Rather than see the sunrise, we eventually saw it peaking through the tree limbs and above the still-present fog, as bright as a hot and humid August day in the desert, around 9AM. I've never in my life gone through Cades Cove and not seen a deer. At times we've stopped counting at fifty. This particular beautifully perfect, cool Saturday morning, we walked over 9 miles and saw a whopping 5 turkey, 1 giant spider, a million and 3 horses, and I think maybe 3 birds (but they were squirrely and I think there may have been only 2). Speaking of squirrels, I didn't even see any of those.

Our biker friends.

This is my favorite shot. No Photoshop on this one.

I don't know why I find this picture so interesting and worth posting. But. I do.

I had so much fun soaking up the beauty and peacefulness that is the mountains that Chip and I packed the back of the truck on Monday as if we were leaving for the beach for a month. We had a picnic basket, cooler, towels, water shoes, water toys of every kind, picnic blankets and a soccer ball and football. It was the making of a perfect day for sure.

Darn it! I forgot my candy to bribe them with!

You just gotta love my little tree huggers!

We found rock steps. Kendall tested my patience and heart health as she enjoyed running, skipping and hopping up and down these for the better part of a half hour. So, we drove the entire loop. We exited and entered again to play in some water we had seen along one of the 2-way roads just as you enter Cades Cove. As we were approaching the water, a car passes and the drive says "there's a bear right there." Of course I got excited. I was ready to get out of the car after parking and take pictures of a mama bear drinking water with her cubs 50 yards away. Nope. We drove all of two more feet, looked out the window to our left and there he was. This is not zoomed. Chip could have literally scratched behind the little guy's ears had he been so brave.

He meandered down the gravel road while we parked our car. The four of us followed and stopped at a safe distance where I became very thankful I just purchased a new zoom lens. Chip took the kids back to the water after they became bored of staring at a black blob their parents were insisting was a bear. I then continued to take pictures froma closer yet still safe distance. 135 pictures later I finally walked away and these are just a few I came away with.

We are unbelievably blessed to live near the Great Smoky Mountains and I can't say it enough how blessed I feel to have a family that appreciates our time there as much as I do.