When I was small a group of us went to the Smokey Mountains. We kids were desperate to see a wild bear! We do not have bear in my area and this would be the highlight of the trip for we Kids. Bear was the main topic of our conversations.
We were camping. My uncle and his family chose a pop-up camper. We simply had a camper top on our pick-up. After a couple days roaming through the mountains, we still had not seen a bear; Bummer. Each night we would stay at a different location.
Along the trip, I do not think we missed anything. We hiked trails. Went to waterfalls. Stopped and read the historical signs etc. But the main attraction we kids wanted to see was Mr Bear.
On the third night we kids conspired!! At each campsite the posted rules said: Do not leave food out, along with the rest of instructions of 'what not to do in bear country' WELL....
After supper, we kids conspired to save our chicken bones.. We 'strategically' placed them in a place which we thought would be a good ideal location to see 'the bear' if 'one' happened to show up around our camp.
Little did we country kids know! There was no need for chicken bones that night!!! A bit after we were in for the night we heard noises, shouting, fussing, garbage cans rattling etc. It was only a half moon lit night and the camp ground had no street lights. We could see flash lights, hear people shouting, fussing, see bears running. There seemed to be bear every where! We kids thought we did it! lol. We were only around seven or eight years old and the oldest of us was around 12. We dared not tell our parents of what we did. We really thought it was our fault that the bears came and toted off some to the campers cooler chest, and ransacked the campground.... lol
We still look back and have a smile of that time.