Stories of the Fire AND A Bear!!!! AT The Buckhorn Inn in Gatlinburg Tennessee

So, we definitely wanted to take our niece to the Buckhorn Inn for what will be a meal she will remember forever......  and we ended up having a VERY exciting evening!

We arrived early and ended up having an unreal conversation with a very sweet couple from Augusta Georgia!  They have a cabin in the area, and they have family that live in Gatlinburg too.  AND they were in town at the time of the 2016 fires!

They were literally in their cabin when they got a call that the fires were getting out of control.  They looked out their window and saw fire everywhere!  As they drove out of town they saw walls of fire on both sides of the road!  They left their cabin not bothering to lock doors or turn out lights.  As they drove away, they assumed that they would never see their cabin again.

Thankfully, their cabin was spared.  They said it was as if the fire went around it.  There was damage, and it did take a couple of years to get the repairs made (repairmen have obviously been busy in the area since the fires).  Unfortunately, their son's home was destroyed.

We also talked about some of the great trips we have made to Georgia.  We ended up talking at length about the Georgia Peach, Ty Cobb!

Dinner starts at 7 at the Buckhorn, so we made our ways to our tables after a very nice chat with this lovely couple.

The main event tonight was the prime rib, after a dutch farmers soup, and a Mediterranean blue salad with blue cheese and curry Dijon vinaigrette.  For dessert they served a toffee crunch cheesecake.  This is a meal that could never be duplicated.

As our meal was winding down, one of the waitstaff, a great fellow named Justin, came around to see if any of us were parked in their lower back lot.  We were not.  We asked if everything was OK.  Justin let us know that a BEAR had managed to get the top off of a dumpster and was going through it!

I'm pretty sure I have mentioned here before that I have never seen a bear in the wild.  This has bothered me for some time... I've seen a bobcat, gators, rattlesnakes, foxes, coyotes, but NEVER a bear!

We asked Justin if we could go out and get a look at the bear, and he told us of a safe area where we should be able to get a look from a distance.

Though it was dark and at night at this point, we got a good look at him!  He was fishing through their dumpster!  FINALLY, I can add "seeing a bear in the wild" to my bragging rights list!  AND, my niece can always claim that she saw a bear on her first night ever in Gatlinburg!

As a side note, when we stayed at the Buckhorn Inn a few years ago, a bear had been outside through the night but we missed him!

Obviously, this is a great area for a bear sighting!

Check out the bottom photo....  Again, it was taken at night, but you can see some white garbage bags by the dumpster on the right.  The black blob (bear) is poking around in the bags to the right.