Faith, Folklore, and Friends

The Foothills Parkway is the oldest unfinished road construction project in Tennessee.  Congress authorized construction of the road in 1944, and they are still working on it some 74 years later.  Fortunately for all of us, a 16.1 mile section was completed on November 10 of this year.  It takes you from Walland to Wears Valley. We drove on it last week, tired after driving all day.  It was a gloomy, dark day, and we really didn't know what to expect. It was awesome, literally breathtaking. I don't know if I have ever seen anything so beautiful. That is Townsend, Tennessee in the valley. Below is Wears Valley, just before the end of the parkway.  We had planned to watch the sunrise on our way home, but because of snow and ice, the parkway was closed that day..  You can be sure our next trip to the Smokies will include some time here.

We were in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg for a few days last week to enjoy all the Christmas festivities there.  On Thursday night, the Weather Channel said there was zero percent chance of precipitation.  The local news said maybe a dusting of snow.  When we got up on Friday morning, it had started to snow, and it snowed all day.  The temperature stayed around 32-34 degrees, so there was none on the roads.  It was a rare treat for us to be in and out of the snow, which was sometimes blowing like a blizzard. All these photos were taken early Saturday morning. The photos above were taken from our balcony at Mountain Loft resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  The ones below were taken on the road going from Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge.  You can see in some of the ones below that the sun was breaking through the clouds. We have been blessed to enjoy Christmas in the Smokies many times, bu...

I really wasn't that excited about the solar eclipse, but the mountains were calling me.  We went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee,  for a few days, including August 21. Pigeon Forge was just outside the northern boundary of totality. On Monday, attempting to get a better view, we drove south from Pigeon Forge on Wears Valley Road to the Church of the Cove, a place where we have worshiped before on our mountain trips.  It is about two miles north of Townsend, and traffic was bumper to bumper on that curvy road more than two hours before the eclipse.  When we got to the church's picnic area, some of our new best friends were already there, and some came a little later. We were from Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, and Alabama.  Some of them had guitars (could we possibly be more blessed?) and we sang every eclipse-related song we could think of-- Don't let the Sun Go Down on Me, I Feel a Bad Moon Arising, etc. We ate snacks and talked and waited....