Dangerous Frontiers: Hunting for Bears

Friday, despite waking early, we lingered, sorry to leave the sweet South and head into the deep woods.

Due to our dwadling, a dangerous race with the sun ensued. We found ourselves without groceries or gas half an hour away from our campsite, with the sun rapidly sinking.

What to do??

Keep going of course!

While Katrina, Steffanie and Katie started to set up camp, Autumn and Molly jumped back in the van running on nothing but fumes and took off. To their shock and horror they found themselves headed up the mountain instead of down. After a couple of U-turns and a few choice words they found their way out and into civilization where they were able to secure gas and stockpile hot dogs.

Meanwhile, back at camp, Katrina, Steffanie and Katie were trying to start a fire with wet twigs, damp wood and bad moods.

When we finally sat down by lamplight to eat dinner, hot dogs never tasted so good! We forgot about campground quiet hours and pulled on cowgirl hats and attempted to sing and play guitar until late into the night. We would mention here... Molly and Steffanie met Johnny, the old country store owner, this day. He held them captive in conversation about hemp and when they were able to escape, they pronounced him "crazy." More on that later...

As the sun rose over the tall green pines the next morning, we prepared to go on a hike, a 4.4 trek to a waterfall. Bear talk started. Molly was deeply regretting not buying an air horn and Katrina's bear bell was MIA in the van. The ranger advised us not to bring food in our backpack, but Katrina and Autumn brought bananas anyway and developed a huge craving for peanut butter (secretly they wanted to see a bear).

As we headed onto the trail, we were relieved and simultaneously disappointed to see many other hikers. Immediately our wild wilderness seemed tame and even hysteria-prone Steffanie (who had dreamt of being mauled by a bear) got a little happy when we crossed bear excrement.

Bear poo aside, the hike was peaceful and scenic, cumulating with an ice-cold waterfall cascading down proud boulders.

Our hike was so long and relaxing, we came back to camp and took a delightful 2-hour nap. We were awoken by the park ranger loudly exclaiming "You're in bear country now! If you're gonna be taking naps in your tent you need to put your cooler in the car!" He threatened us with a seventy-five dollar fine and took off. We were simply too tired to move, so the cooler stayed right where it was....on the picnic bench for all the bears to smell.

Upon waking, Katrina and Katie headed a mile down the road to get firewood. There they met "crazy" Johnny and thought he was a helpful, back-woods man. Johnny gave Katrina a free cup of coffee and helped direct them out of a dangerous parking spot.

Despite having two bundles of wood, Autumn decided we needed more, with the alterior motive of meeting "crazy, helpful" Johnny and drove back up to the store. She evidently found him to be charming because she told him her running habits, our campgroud location and our deep desire to see a bear.

Back at camp, a sudden storm was brewing. The woods went from still to threatening in five minutes. A fellow camper sounded the call loudly: "Rain!" And it began to downpour. 8:40 at night, having taken a 2 hour nap, now stranded in our tent for the evening.

Hours later, as we hunkered down for the night, reading and relaxing in our undies, we heard the roar of an engine, the flash of headlights and a thick drawling voice cut through the darkness: "Arr you tha gurrls frum Iowuh??"

We cracked open the tent to see Johnny standing in the middle of our campsite in the pouring rain, clutching a large ziplock bag in either hand. "Which one ov ya'll said you wanted to see a bear?"

To our horror, we watched helplessly as Johnny scattered blueberries, grapes and peanut butter sandwiches throughout our campsite. "No Johnny!" we shrieked...."we don't want the bear IN our tent!!"

As quickly as he arrived, he left, but not before he had asked us to come outside to say goodbye and that his son wanted to meet us.

We flew into a frenzy! Steffanie, in hysterics, teetering on the edge of tears, began blaming Autumn for our impending death. Katrina, dumbfounded by the bizarre circumstance we just came under, sat there pondering "who else does this happen to?!" Katie's round eyes were getting wider and she got close to whomever would allow it, sensing the insecurity of our flimsy tent. Molly tried to stay calm and stand as the voice of reason but it was of no use, the feeling of panic had already spread. Autumn, quieter than she normally is, was scooching further into the corner of the tent, putting up her defenses to the many blows of accusations and finger-pointing from the rest of the girls. She knew, just as well as the others, that she had divulged too much information to our friend Johnny. We were playing the blame-game and Autumn was losing by a landslide.

We soon realized that not only should we be scared of bears...

but of Johnny as well.

Needless to say, we had trouble sleeping, but occupied our minds by swapping stories about frightening events that we have encountered throughout our lives. We soon decided that bizzare things regularly happen to the O'Connor family. A compilation of these stories may just turn into an interesting book someday.

We woke up the next morning to find that no one had been mauled by bears (but one was spotted not far from our camp).

Sunday was spent reading, horseback riding, and going on a blindfolded "trust walk" throughout the woods. We ate weiners once again and then fled to our tent due to torrential downpours for the second night in a row.

Monday, we drove and hiked to Clingman's Dome, the highest peak in the Smoky Mountains. Afterwards, we began our descent back into civilization, and our 8 hours drive into Virginia. The trip was actually entertaining with music, talking, and reading (a stop at Waffle House hit the spot!).....and then the 8th hour struck. We realized we were exhausted and had no where to sleep. Autumn, the driver at the time, started swerving and babbling rather incoherently. Unable to bear the thought of camping alongside the road or in a church parking lot, we pulled into a Day's Inn and got a room. We had mattresses, mirrors, food, coffee, Internet, laundry. It's nearly 1 in the afternoon, and we are still here!! We are unable to leave the lap of luxury. We are headed out to a day of roller coaster action at Busch Garden. Stay tuned. SEE NEW PICTURES BELOW. LOVE XXXXXOOOOO