It’s not every day you start out in a major city like Boston and end up stalking black bears in the Great Smoky Mountains. At least it doesn’t happen to us every day — we don’t know about you. In fact, in all our wanderings around the country and around the globe, it’s happened a total of once: when, during our brief hiatus from volunteering abroad, we went from visiting our son in Rhode Island to visiting Dennis’s brother in Tennessee.

And the day does actually begin in Providence, where we’d been visiting our son Zephyr. Early in the morning, loaded with all our bags, we trudge the short distance to the Providence train terminal, and take a train to Boston’s South Station, where we sort out where to board a bus to Logan Airport. It’s quite confusing, and we end up asking help from the workers at a food booth. An Indian food booth, with attendants who seem to be from India, and how’s that for irony.

At the airport, we have plenty of time, but have to wait in a long line to get in. For once — perhaps the first time ever — Dennis does not get any of his bags flagged. Normally, he has to take out half the items in his carry-ons to prove they are not lethal. Unless, of course, we’re in India. In which case he has to empty out absolutely EVERY.. SINGLE… THING…and totally repack the bag. This time, miraculously, no alarm sounds, and he has no problem. So we can just zip right on through, right?

Er… not quite. This time it’s Kimberly who’s the bottleneck. The agents are suspicious of her Tupperware-ish container of oatmeal, which she’d prepared for her breakfast. (Her standard breakfast, every single morning.) They scrutinize it with great suspicion, but ultimately decide that Quaker’s is nothing to quake over, and we are on our way.

After that, it’s an uneventful flight to Knoxville, where we are picked up by Dennis’s brother Gene, and sister-in-law Linda. After we’ve deposited our gear at their house, they decide that, the day still being rather young, they want to drive us out to their favorite local sightseeing locale, Cades Cove — a valley in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Cades Cove was christened after a Tsiya’hi leader named Chief Kade — the Cherokee settled in this area by the late Eighteenth Century at the very latest. The white settlers arrived early in the Nineteenth Century and built homes and churches, some of which still stand (many have been relocated, but hey). There’s even a grist mill still cranking.

Today, Cades Cove is encompassed by an 11-mile loop that can take 3 hours or so to drive through, because it’s the most popular destination in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There are plenty of other folks who come to check out those historic structures — and other things.

There’s considerable scenic beauty, for example. In fact, as soon as you enter the loop, if the mountains are not too “smoky” (i.e., misty), you can catch a glimpse of Mollie’s Butt. No, really. That’s the official name of the formation. A “butt” is an abrupt drop-off of a mountain range or peak, and there are quite a few butts in these parts. But this butt is probably the butt of a few jokes.

There are also other little gems you can discover if you park the car on the shoulder and hike a few yards. One thing worth checking out is the Pearl Harbor Tree. It’s a sweet gum that was planted on the day of the infamous attack (Dec. 7, 1941) to honor the fallen by Golman Myers. It was at that time in his front yard, though it’s hard to imagine anyone living that recently in what is now a pristine forested area. Myers placed the metal rim of a bicycle tire around the sapling to protect it; and as the tree grew over the years, the rim split apart and became embedded in the trunk, where it remains. The tree is now reportedly at least 60 feet tall.

There is no sign pointing the way to this landmark, but it’s not hard to home in on. If you get anywhere within hollering range, you’ll likely spot the robust crop of little American flags that visitors have planted in the split log mini-fence now encircling the tree.

But let’s face it, the real draw of the Cove is not something you have to expend a great deal of effort to scout out. In fact, it’s something that will pretty much come to you. Namely, the wildlife — the deer and raccoons and turkeys and coyotes and chipmunks, and bears, oh my. Especially the bears. On any given day, you’re likely to spot at least a dozen ursine ramblers. And they’re usually not very timid, having grown accustomed to the presence of us furless bilateral bipeds.

There are mama bears and daddy bears and baby bears, all out for a stroll while their porridge cools. There’s one mom with a couple of cubs, one of which gets momentarily stranded on a branch, and mom patiently waits for it to hone its own survival skills rather than immediately climb to its rescue.

It’s not a bad outcome for our first of two days exploring the Cove. And just for good measure, we get a snake thrown into the mix as well. A morning of skyscrapers and heavy traffic, and an afternoon of woods and critters — and heavy traffic. It’s been quite a varied day.

Events occurred 5/1/2025