More of the Hike

Upon reaching the top...

a worker led us past these cabins to our cabin

which turned out to be the furthest away from the dining room and the bathrooms

I was looking forward to the sponge bath using the bucket and the wonderfully hot water from the tap

when the young lady told us that there has been bear activity. Close. In that particular isolated cabin, in fact. Another employee had been cleaning our cabin and when she walked away from it, the bear hurried in and began to pull the sheets off the bed. The bear had also broken through another cabin's window and had walked around that cabin for awhile. If we saw a bear, we should throw rocks at it and raise our arms to look tall. Didn't sound like enough.

Well, at least we had a pretty view as we waited for darkness to fall...

During the night...

lower bunk: "Where do you think the bear is?"

upper bunk: "...circling..."

But we made it to dawn in one piece

and were even able to enjoy walking through the Mountain Farm back at the Cherokee entrance later, where the ranger gave us some stalks of sorghum to taste as we walked off. It tastes great right off the stalk.

Good-bye, Smokies! Oh, we saw this guy's wife further up the trail and we were supposed to tell him he "could make it" (to the Fat Man's Squeeze). He seemed uninterested. Notice how he is facing away from the advancing trail :-).