“There Was A Bear Walking Down the Middle of the Road”

 

Blairsville, Georgia (high 84, low 61)

 

“There was a bear walking down the middle of the road”, was the phrase I heard the other night from a lady that had just returned from a ride on her golf cart.

Many people here have golf carts and around 7pm, they all take off  looking for wildlife.  Of course, seeing a bear is the goal.  Al and I have been either walking, or driving the  truck in our evening bear hunting expeditions. 

Al and I have resisted buying a golf cart,  even though we used to have one when we lived in Georgia and we really enjoyed it.

When I heard someone say that they saw a bear walking down the middle of the road,   I knew it was on the road leading to phase two of our campground, and that it is the road right behind our sight.  We might have seen the bear if we had only been looking.

Anyway….. (you can see where this is going, can’t you?)  We decided we needed a golf cart, so after doing some research and checking on Craig’s List, we were off to Murphy, North Carolina (30 minutes away) to look at used golf carts.

We made a deal on a used golf cart and it was delivered later that same day.

It’s a lot of fun having a golf cart, and happy hour is particularly nice!

There are a lot of country roads, paved and gravel around that make nice places to ride.  

You never know what you’re going to find in the early morning hours.  These deer appear to be enjoying the farmers soybeans.

We’ve been trying to get another bear sighting and hoped the golf cart would give us an advantage.

Al discovered where the bear crosses the road after a night spent in a farmers corn field.

Here is a picture of the bears footprint, compared to mine.  He crosses the road in the exact same spot each morning.

Yesterday morning, we drove by the spot the first time and there were no prints.  20 minutes later, we drove by again and we saw the prints.  We just missed him!

This morning, we parked on the side of the road, got our cameras out and we were rewarded with a bear sighting!

It was pretty foggy and we were pretty far away.  A jeep came down the road in our direction, and distracted us a little.  Right after the jeep passed, the bear ran right behind the jeep and off into the woods to the exact same spot his footprints show he goes every morning.

 

These were the best pictures I could get.  Next time, I think I’ll bring my big zoom lens and see if I can do better.

We were thrilled to have seen him and it seems that he stays pretty much on schedule each day, so we don’t think it will be hard to catch him again….now that we know where to look.

 

We’ve been pretty busy around here.  We’re finding it’s difficult getting everything in that we want to do.  We want to look for bears early in the morning, then we want to do a hike, and then we want to do a soak in the hot tub, and we also want coffee and computer time.  Too much to do, not enough morning!  

We’re working around here trying spruce things up and plant a few plants.

We found a sale on Encore Azaleas, so Al is hard at work trying to get them planted.  He discovered pretty quickly why there are so many big rocks lining everyone’s gardens.  As soon as he started digging a hole, he encountered rocks.

Can you see those rocks under the deck?  They came out of two small holes.   I’m not kidding!

Our project for today is to start re-staining the cabin. We’ve actually kind of enjoyed working around here.  I think it helps since the temperatures have been so nice.  Not exactly cool during the days, but pleasant enough to work outside. Much better than in Tampa.

 

On our way back from getting the golf cart in Murphy, NC, we decided to take another way home and run over to Tennessee.

We are in the northern part of Georgia, and just north of us is a portion of both Tennessee and North Carolina.

On the highway in Tennessee, we came across the Ocoee river, which as it turns out is where the 1996 whitewater portion of the Olympics took place.

There is a beautiful welcome center, so we decided to check it out.

The last time we were in Tennessee we came home with a kitten (Chattanooga/AKA Chatty)

On that visit, as soon as we pulled up to this hang gliding place, we started hearing a small kitten crying pitifully.  He was by himself on the side of a very steep cliff….and the rest is history.

On this visit, as soon as we pulled up and got out of the truck, I heard a cat crying.  Oh, no….not again.

Crap…..   We noticed places there, so it’s apparent someone is feeding him.  As much as I would have liked to have provided him a good home, we can’t.  At least someone is feeding him.  I hope he finds a home.

Anyway…this area is amazing.  They built some of it especially for the Olympics.  Not all of the rocks are natural.

The Tennessee Valley Authority controls when and how often water is released from the damn.  When we were there there wasn’t much water, so no rapids.

When water is released, the whitewater rafting trips begin.

They are doing it again this week-end, so we plan on taking another drive up to Tennessee.

I thought this t-shirt was cute.

Will we whitewater raft?  No, and I’ll tell you why when I post about it after we visit again.

The ride home was about 45 miles with some interesting scenery.

the end