Being a city girl from Long Beach, California and living in San Diego most of my life, I am not accustomed to seeing much in the way of wildlife. Growing up, the wildest wildlife I ever saw were exhibits at the San Diego Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and Sea World during the annual school vacation trip my family would take south.

As an adult, I’m always thrilled to see any creature out in the wild. Around our house at Sun City Peachtree in Griffin, Georgia, we have seen a deer or two come up from the golf course and through the trees for a visit to our backyard. When that happens, I always run to get my camera and snap a few shots through the kitchen window. It tickles me every time.

A couple of days ago, I even saw two deer sprint across Maple Drive as I was driving to work for Griffin Choral Arts. I was very thankful they weren’t struck by the car in front of me.

Today, as we drove through Smoky Mountain National Park on our way to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, I saw something I had never seen outside of a zoo: an elk! This one was HUGE, and he was casually grazing in the field adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park Visitor Center. If it hadn’t been for all of drivers that pulled off the road to watch, I never would have believed Bruce when he looked out the window and said, “There’s an elk!” Surely, he would have been pulling my leg. Here is proof that he wasn’t! We nicknamed this fella “Lawrence Elk”.