Where Are the Bears?

“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” – Maya Angelou

Whenever I am at a park I am always looking for a body of water. It doesn’t matter if it is a state park, local park or even a national park. I try to find either a lake, stream, river, pond, or waterfall. I am always looking for a spot with water to photograph. To me bodies of water gives a landscape character. It either flows through it or reflects the scene around it.

When I visited Gatlinburg earlier this month, we drove through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park on our way there. On the main road through the park, you drive by the Little River. I knew I wanted to take a moment during the trip to take photos of it at one point. I got an opportunity a couple of days later. The weather was really warm, so this made it easy to check out everything. We found a spot called the nature overlook. I heard the river from where we were standing. My wife and I started to head down towards the river. The path there got steeper and steeper, so she decided to turn back and wait for me in the truck. I got down to the bottom, and just stood there observing all of it’s beauty. There was no one down there. I took advantage and snapped some shots. I even did some slow-shutter speed shots that I will post on another day.

Towards the end of my time down at the stream I heard this noise. It sound like a faint car horn, and I thought it was some commotion on the road. I started to heard back, and I realized it was a whistler. It was my wife trying to get my attention. She couldn’t call me because there was cell reception. She was trying to get my attention because she heard there was bears near by. Since she had not heard from me in a while, she was worried about me. I made it back up to the top, and I did not see any bears. However, we did see some bears later in the trip. While we were at the cabin we were staying at for the week, we saw a cub come on the porch. The cub decided to walk off with my bag for grilling pellets for my grill. He didn’t get too far with it. I guess the smell of the pellets attracted him to it. Once he realized he wasn’t carrying food, he left it at the bottom of the stairs.