Day 13: The Smokies

We’re back in the Smokies, so you know what that means? Breakfast at Mel’s Diner before heading off to Cade’s Cove for the 11-mile drive of nature’s Smoky joy in search of the elusive bear. So we drove the loop and almost immediately came upon a large group of cars and their inhabitants peering out into a field. We rolled up next to a truck full of hoosiers/rednecks and asked what was out there to be seen. The answer did not come back from the truck in the voice of its human driver, but in the voice of a small kickable canine on the driver’s lap yapping its high-pitched yap. Thank you mangy, flea-infested mutt. I’m sure the bears love to hear your yappy ass in the morning much in the same way Kilgore loves the scent of napalm. If only you’d wander off into the woods, wrapped in bacon and slathered in Poo Bear’s honey, in search of bear, coyote, fox, camel, Siberian tiger, dragon or any other animal/mythical creature that might consume you in a single morsel. Ah, wishful thinking.

So here’s this group of people staring off into an open field at a tree line in the distance saying that a bear pops up occasionally. Whatevs. As long as I watched, nothing out there moved – not a single blade of prairie grass, not a single leaf on any tree, not a wing of a butterfly, not the snot of a squirrel, not an alien from the X-Files, and least of all, not a bear. Those fools stayed behind as we moved on to mile 10.5 in search of a real actual bear. I managed to snap about 5,000 pictures of stupid Smoky Mountain deer, but the bears of the Smokies evaded me like D.B. Cooper and thwarted my nature photos once again. I hate them. They are not nice bears. I bet they aren’t all that photogenic anyway. I’d rather have photos of those bigger and better Alaskan bears. Hands down.

Yeah. Kinda like those.

After the morning’s bear disappointment, heading back to Wears Valley, we all realized our hunger for foodstuffs and started looking for the BBQ place we stopped at for lunch last year. We couldn’t remember the name of said establishment, but knew there was a man’s name or two in it. Turns out that Dakota Jack’s Hawg Pit moved about a half a block down the road into a gazebo-looking building. They were the same tasty, sauce-covered eats we remembered and oh so cheap! Jack should really charge more for his grub, but I’m sure glad he doesn’t while I'm in town.

The road to the Cade’s Cove side of the park goes through a place called Wears Valley with a narrow, winding, two-lane road with several pickin’ places scattered about along the way. So of course we had to make a few stops in the valley to peruse the antique findings. After making no purchases, we left Wears Valley and headed into Pigeon Forge to the Book Warehouse, a mostly used bookstore, and a general store that prides itself on its extensive Moon Pie inventory. I picked up a book and Julia picked up a Moon Pie…a single, solitary Moon Pie that she apparently did not intend to share with her driver/trip planner. Her excuse was that it was a mini Moon Pie and not one of the life-sized Moon Pies that are big enough to share. Why would this woman, with whom I share four Dings, partake of a chocolate-covered treat of any type in my presence and not expect to share it? Better yet, why would she only purchase one such delight to begin with? Pretty sure she hates me. Never you mind. You know what they say about paybacks…

As you ponder the payback options, click HERE to see the photos from the day.