The Smoky Mountains

Camping with a Black Bear!

After a week and half of medical school Sampson surprises me with a camping reservation.  I was completely shocked that Sampson actually wanted to be with us! Haha It was just what we needed though.  We headed out after his last class ended at noon.  We camped in the most beautiful area.  We found this creek for the girls to play in.  These girls definitely love the water and of course after I told them to try not to get wet, Eva just sits down in the water to pick up a rock.  We found these sweet neon orange mushrooms.  I had never seen anything like this before.  After we started hiking towards a waterfall that was about 2 miles from our camp.  Without kid carriers, hiking is slow moving, especially when Eva wants to walk the whole way.  After about a mile it started to sprinkle and we were hearing lots of thunder.  Sampson decided we should head back even though I wanted to go all the way (more for pride reasons :).  So we each took a kid and headed back.  After about 5 minutes I heard a twig snap and turned around to see a black bear walking across the trail about 10 ft away from me and Phoenix.  I was like, "Bear.....BEAR!" and quickly caught up with Sampson (who must always hike at least 20 feet ahead of me) who had a knife.  We had just been discussing before we came, how it wasn't very likely that we would see a bear and we decided to not bring the gun.  Luckily, it had just started to rain pretty hard and the bear just kept on walking past us.  Nevertheless, I was freaked out because I thought it was a baby and the the mom must be close by and I really didn't want to stay and say hi.  We got back to camp in about 10 minutes in the pouring rain.  Sampson said, "Wow Britt, you really hike fast when you are motivated".  I just didn't feel like fighting a bear to the death to protect the family :)  Once we got back to camp we were soaked.  We didn't get to dry off because it just kept raining, raining, and raining some more.  We managed to find a pavilion to cook the steak for fajitas, which were amazing by the way.  Then we drove over to Gatlinburg and went to the Aquarium that night to try and warm up a little bit.  The girls, of course, had the time of their life.  Phoenix ran to each exhibit....she loves that place.  That night it continued to rain and I kept thinking a bear was coming to get me....I didn't get much sleep :)  We had a great trip despite the rain and being way to close to a bear for my comfort.