Lions, Tigers and BEARS Oh My!

As we continued around Cades Cove we came upon so many wonderful homesteads that were built in the mid 1800's. These buildings were intact and you were able to walk through them. The families have donated these structures and land to the National Park.

This was one of my homesteads. I could just imagine the family living there. I always dreamed of being "The Walton's". I always said, " I want to get married, have 8 babies and live on a mountain!" The smaller building to the left of the cabin was a grainery.

A side view of the cabin. The smokehouse . . .there was also a big barn but for some reason I didn't take a picture of it. I was in heaven at this place.
We jumped back in our cars and came along about 3 other homesteads. Then the traffic stopped . . .we thought there must have been an accident. So, we slowly but slowly creeped along. Finally, we came upon some people getting back into their car. We asked them what was going on . . they said there was a mama bear and her cub and everyone had pulled over to take pictures. Well, as soon as she said bear we were pulling over ourselves.

So, we started hiking through the woods . . .being careful not to step on any poisen ivy and sure enough came across the bears.

Now, most of the people stayed far enough away but there was one 47 year old Colombian male that had to be within 20 feet of them . .. can you guess who I am talking about?
My wonderful, adorable husband got as close as he could as I prayed that he wouldn't be killed all for a picture . . . LOL

Finally a park ranger showed up and told everyone to head back to their cars. Thankfully Carlos was able to get all those pictures without the bear attacking him :-)

The drive back down the mountain was just as beautiful as the way up.
We then headed into downtown Gatlinburg.