Beary Interesting

On Sunday after leaving Kuwohi at the eastern side of    the Great Smoky Mountain National Park we drove an hour to the Sugarland Visitor Center and then another hour to Cades Cove which is at the far western side of the park.    This drive begins at a visitor center near Gatlinburg, Tennessee and winds  along Little River for 30 miles.    It takes a long time to travel this as it is really curvy.   Then when we got to the Cades Cove entrance it was still  an 11 mile loop along a narrow one way road that goes along meadows and through woods.  Mostly flat but lots of curves.     It is a beautiful area.

Sunday evening when we got there around 3pm it took us three hours to drive the 11 miles!!   There were bears in the fields and everyone ahead of us was stopping to look. There were so many other vehicles doing the same as us...looking for bears.

We were fortunate to see three bears on Sunday.  They are in the extras.  These three were in fields and one in a tree!  

We spent the night at Townsend, TN which was only about a 30 minute drive.  A really nice little town that is not as touristy and crowded as Gatlinburg.   We woke to heavy fog which excited me as I knew the sun would be coming out sooner or later and make great photo opportunities so off to the Cove we went.   The main photo is the young bear we saw this morning around 9am. We crested a hill and there it was along the side of the road on my side of the car.  I was able to take photos out the open window instead of through the window.  Unfortunately there were other people who pulled over and got out of their car on the opposite side of the road which caused the bear to move into the woods.    But it was definitely a thrill to be about 20 feet from this creature.    A couple other photos of him/her in the extras.  

There were also horses in the field yesterday afternoon.    I think these may be horses that can be rented for riding.   A few photos of the horses in the extras also as well as some of the drive in the fog this morning.