Black Bears - Cades Cove

Back Bears Are Scary

I saw TWO black bears this weekend, from about 100 ft away (I was above them).  They where much bigger than I expected them to be.  I wondered how afraid for my life I should be.  We stared at each other.  I tried to take a picture without looking through the view finder.  I missed.  The flash went off.  The bears jumped and started to move.  I ran away yelling.  My shorts remained dry.

I know that you are not supposed to startle them - auto flash is dumb.  I also know you are not supposed to run away from bears - back away
slowly.    Once they moved though, damned if I was going to back away slowly.

PreBear Encounter

The forest is very pretty in the fall.  I need to learn how to take pictures.  And a new camera.

Whenever I ask people to take a picture of me on the trail I get a lot of weird pictures of myself.  The girl who took the one on the right decided she wanted to take it from off the trail to "get in the beautiful woods".  She was a confusing person.

There was a lot of Fungi (I was one of them - for you, Isaac) that looked cool.

I do get out and socialize.  I went to a party that had UV lights - and then once I had a bit to much to drink I tried hitting on a girl by explaining to her how the fluorescence worked.  I got to harvesting electrons from the pi cloud before I struck out. (She did seem sort of interested at first . . . I think?)  And then there was Murph dancing.