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Jason & Brittany Aldean Get A Crash Course On Black Bears In Gatlinburg: “They Know How To Open Doors!”
Jason and Brittany Aldean have had quite the interesting family vacation this year.
The country music family packed up and headed for a mountain vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and apparently no one told them they'd be coexisting with bears that live there year round. I'm sure you can already tell where this story is heading (especially since you saw the title and quite literally clicked on it), but let's start at the very beginning, shall we?
Fans of the Aldeans have been able to keep up to date with the family vacation thanks to Brittany Aldean, who has been posting occasional pictures, videos and messages on her Instagram story. It first got kicked off with some car ride pictures, and then a stop at Buc-ee's (road trip essential if you ask me). Once they got to their vacation destination, a selfie video from inside their cabin was uploaded along with the message:
"Family trip 2024 has begun."
So one could say that post marked the official start of their family vacation.
Not even an hour later, Brittany added another video, but this time there wasn't a bunch of smiling and peace-signs being thrown about. Instead, Brittany took a video of her and Jason's real-time reactions as they watched a family of bears break into and tear through all of the vehicles that were parked outside their cabin.
Brittany provided this commentary:
"We have bears in our cars. They can open the doors. We didn't know that. Their in our cars."
The country music wife then asked her followers for "one moment" as the party appeared to move outside to further investigate.
While the bears were still rummaging around in the vehicle, the Aldean family stepped outside (or at least opened the door) to get a better look at the bruins in action. In the video posted to Brittany's story, you can hear the group trying to figure out whose car the bear was climbing through.
In the midst of their discussion, a bear cub could be seen climbing onto the passenger seat, and then down and out of the vehicle. Some wise counsel stated that the "mama bear" must be near, so it would be best for them to go back into the safety of the indoors. So that's what they did, but not before Brittany was able to capture this image of a bear cub guilty of breaking-and-entering:
Now what could have provoked those bears to break into those cars?
Well, the usual suspect - or reason for bruins to bust into cars - is food. Bears tend to be pretty nosy creatures, and though they have been known to get violent when provoked (or if their cubs are messed with), they usually just get into a little mischief here and there. And sometimes that means getting into a little trouble for the sake of an easy meal.
Brittany revealed in another video uploaded to her story that food was the culprit:
"Okay update, if you care. It looks like there is two cubs and a mama. They have ransacked three big cars. A truck and two Tahoes. They are not scared and they know how to open the doors! I've never seen anything like it. This is wild.
So night one of our family trip is very interesting. There's food and stuff out there scattered everywhere. I guess we just didn't think about keeping snacks in there."
The two cubs and mother did some damage, and apparently got full off of whatever was in the vehicles outside of the Aldean cabin. They'll now know that you cannot, under any circumstance, leave food in a vehicle in an area where hungry bears might be roaming.
Brittany later shared a piece of evidence that was recovered after the bears had moved on. One of them cracked into a Ghost energy drink, and she presumed that one of them likely "had the zoomies" because of it:
Let this be a lesson to keep your car locked (like everything else has to be) when you are in staying in a place that bears also call home. If you don’t, then you’re kind of asking for a bear to break into your vehicle - as the Aldeans found out on the very first night of their Gatlinburg vacation.