Bear hunters in Blue Ridge, Virginia - always talk to strangers!

Sometimes the simplest things bond strangers together. It can be a shared love for music, a song, immense passion for travel or, in my case, a fuzzy bear hat. I wear this hat during all of my winter travels and it never fails to attract attention from strangers. Immediately they are put at ease by the silly ears on top of my head, and on numerous occasions it has served as the starting point for conversations with random people on the street. However, I never imagined I would actually encounter bear hunters while wearing it. This exact thing happened on the final leg of a long road trip through the Mid-West, when I was routing back home to Virginia through the Blue Ridge Mountains. There I crossed paths with a group of rugged mountain men engaged in a high tech bear hunt. Luckily, they didn't shoot when they saw me. :)( Read more... )