One day in early May, 2001 I was en route to Cape Hatteras, NC, heading down there to help out with the Hatteras Keepers' Descendants Homecoming.

Along about 10:45 AM I was toodling along U.S. Highway 64 about two miles west of Columbia, NC, heading east.

All of a sudden I saw something big and black moving on the left-hand side of the road. The trees were pretty dense right along there, but when it moved out of the tree line towards the road, I almost ran off the road.

Great horny toads, methought.  A full-grown black bear!

About 100 yards past that spot, there was a road turning off to the right; I used it to turn around and headed back towards where the bear had been, hoping to get some pictures.  I stopped at what hopefully was about 100 feet from where the bear had been.  Close enough, but not too close.  By the time I got turned around and pulled off the road, though, the animal was nowhere to be seen.

But all of a sudden it poked its nose out of the woods again, not 50 feet from the front of the Blazer.  I hurriedly reached into the back seat, trying to get the camera out and ready for action.  Managed to snap a couple of shots from inside the truck; which ended up not turning out at all.

Finally I decided to get out, and sit on the hood of the truck; hopefully if need be, I could move 5 feet to get back inside the truck before the bear could cover the 50 feet between it and me!  Black bears don't much attack humans anyway, unless cornered or provoked.

The bear was trying to get across the road, but passing cars and trucks kept scaring it back into the woods.  This went on for several minutes.  Most of the time it was thrashing around in the woods, only occasionally venturing out, just to be scared back into the trees by the passing vehicles.  When it did come out in the open, it wouldn't stay still long enough to where I could get many good pictures.

Then I heard a noise coming from across the road; a weird sound the likes of which I'd never heard before.  Sort of a high, raspy "whaaaahhhh"....sounded like a wounded large bird at first.  Maybe a buzzard.  The noise was coming from up in a tree, just inside the treeline across the road.  The foliage was dense enough that I couldn't see the source of the noise.  But the bear seemed to be trying to get at whatever was making that noise.

Then, through a small clearing in the foliage across the road, I saw the source of the noise.  About 10 feet up in a tree, there were two bear cubs, looking to be about 20 pounds apiece.  They were hollering out to their Mama!  And she was trying to get back across the road to them, but the steady stream of passing vehicles was keeping her from getting back to her babies.  Why she crossed to the other side of the road to begin with is anybody's guess; I just happened to stumble into the middle of this scene, y'know.

Above, "Mama Bear" was standing up on her hind legs, looking at me.  I was still sitting on the hood of the Blazer, trying to appear non-threatening.  Her babies were nearby, so that 'no-attack theory' might not have been valid right about then.....