We aggroed bears!!

So we went to the Smokies. And THEN we made the mistake of going to Cades Cove on a nice Saturday morning(well, we didn't get there until about 11am). We were almost all the way around, had only seen a couple of deer, lots of butterflies and about a billion nasty cicadas when it happened. Lots of red lights up ahead, vehicles are stopped, flashes can be seen going off in the woods. We were about 7 or 8 cars back and I hopped out with my camera to see what the fuss was all about. As I got there a nice old man pointed out that there were 2 bears, about 20 yards back, laying down in the woods. I got a higher vantage point and with my zoom lens in the darkness of the forest, I was going to be happy to come away with a photo like this one:

So I snapped a few shots and was about to head back to the car. They had made it up to where I was and my mom and kiddo had gotten out wanting to see it for themselves. As I turned to go back I heard "HERE HE COMES!" and turned to snap this shot:

UH OH! I thought! GET IN THE CAR! NOW! In my haste I kept turning to try to get closer shots, but they mostly ended up like this one...focusing WONDERFULLY on the branches and bushes between the bear and I:

We got in the car and what does Mr Bear do? Finds himself a good tree beside the road and gets to really itching a spot on his side. We were laughing up a storm, so excited at what we were seeing! The truck you see was parked right in front of us, we were so close to the bear!


Then I realized the other bear was headed our way too and I rolled down the window. In all this time I had been panicking and freaking and was so excited, I was getting ticked because the camera wouldn't focus and was taking forever to recharge the flash. It finally HIT ME to turn OFF the flash and use the MANUAL focus! Doh! About that time I nabbed this shot of the other bear very near our car:

We said our goodbyes and thank yous to the bears as he watched us drive away...

Of all the trips I've made to the Smokies and Cades Cove, and I've seen quite a few bears, this was the closest and by far the most memorable! It was incredible!

I have much more to say about the trip, but we just got home and I wanted to get this up ASAP!