The cantilever barn at the Tipton place is, in my opinion, the most iconic structure in Cades Cove.  When I started shooting the buildings in Cades Cove at night, I quickly decided I wanted to do a picture of the barn; but I wanted to wait till after all the leaves were gone because of all the brush around… so this weekend it finally worked out.  The moon was BRIGHT, but the sky was really clear.

While my nephew and I were hanging out waiting for the image to complete (about an hour), we had a pretty interesting experience.  We were sitting around in our lawn chairs and the coyotes started howling away as they usually do.  Out of nowhere though, one starts howling right on top of us!  In the Cove it is really hard to gauge where and how many coyotes there are, but when you can hear one breath in-between howls, you know it is CLOSE.  My nephew and I both stood up, startled, and the coyote proceeded to start barking at us.  You know that bark, when you’re walking next to a fence and the dog on the other side is none-to-happy for you to be there… yeah, that was it.  We never actually saw it, but it definitely knew we were there.  It went on for about five minutes or so and then gave up and went on its way.  A little hair-raising at first… but pretty neat as well.

–Dan Thompson