While You Were Out

Signal Mountain Campground has its share of wildlife. It’s not uncommon for animals to wander close – or even in – to vacant campsites. Our first two days we saw a mule deer in the site next to ours. On day 2, it stuck around for quite a while (the site still a couple of hours from hosting its next occupants) nibbling trees and making its way slowly toward the lake. When the nice couple from Colorado arrived we told them about the visitor. That evening about 9 we returned from watching an otter swim through Oxbow Bend only to be told by the nice couple from Iowa across the way that we’d missed two bears “tramping around by the lake” behind our campsite. Apparently, our picnic table was used by the gawking humans to get a better angle. If we hadn’t seen three bears already on this trip, we’d have been bitterly disappointed.