Never seen it in Georgia before. What was it?

When I was 15 my dad and I took a crazy 2 week car trip from Dallas -> Albuquerque -> Red River NM -> Grand Canyon -> Las Vegas -> San Francisco -> Seattle -> Portland -> Seattle -> Prince George -> Dawson Creek - Edmonton -> Calgary -> Yellowstone -> Rocky Mountain NP -> Denver and back home via NM again...

Somewhere in BC in a little rural 2 lane road in the middle of nowhere I had a sight I'll never forget...

Sitting on the side of the road, just watching us drive by, was a large bear.

Waving at us.

Just sitting there, waving...

We slowed down because we thought it was an animatronic it was so... odd... but nope, it was real, just..... sitting there waving...

So we waved back and kept on driving, my dad and I looked at each other and both said something along the lines of "No one's ever gonna believe we just saw that."