Sept. 21st. The Smokey's or where are all the creepy liking bears

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We wake up to find that we just "happen" to be a hop-skip & jump from the Great Smokey Mountains. So we go......
Trevor had heard about the bear attack here a month ago, right before we left on our trip and he's not a big fan of heights, so he wasn't thrilled. We came in through the Tenn side and had to pass all the tourist stuff. I've never been here before and was very suprised to find just how tourist-y this place was.

Shouldn't have been suprised. We had read that this was the busiest National Park in the country and about twice the amount of people visit the Smokey then visit the Grand Canyon, which is number two. We opened our trusty National parks book to see what we "had" to see and picked up a map of the park at the visitor's center. We did the "If you have one day" stuff from the book. We took the main loop up the Mountain and stopped at the picknic area for breakfast and to play in the stream. If anyone is ever up here and finds a brown boy's size 6 flip-flop that's Trevors he lost it in the stream and didn't tell me until it was long gone. The warning fo bears where in lots of places but we didn't see any. Had even thought we should leave some food on the hood of the truck and get in and watch but thought better of it (for those that don't know, I'm JK).

We went on up the road and up and up and stopped at the look out point and climbed some rocks. We where on the TN/ NC boarder at one point as the park is in both states. Then we drove up to the dome and then hiked up the steep .5 hike (takes people an avg of about 30mins to climb it's so steep) to the tallest point in the park which also sits in both NC & TN. We packed lunch and ate it at the top of the top look out. They where most certainly smokey. Ciara said she'd like it in her back yard.

I had asked the kids what not to do around a bear, JIK we where so lucky to see one. Trevor came up with"Don't be creepy." So we decided if bears like kids with extra creepy on the side a few of mine would be just what they'd be looking for.

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Photos

Jesh......mom
The kids had climbed up these rocks and disapeared and Delaney followed while I was taking pictures. I found her already her the top and ask if she could see the kids, she couldn't. Then told her be careful and I didn't like her up there by herself (after all this place is crawling with bears :)). she turn around and said "Jesh mom, I'm just trying to climb".