Faith, Folklore, and Friends

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...

Last Monday, two weeks since the Gatlinburg wildfires, Hub and I drove through there looking at the damage. The worst damage was in the mountains above the bypass from Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge. My friend who works at  Apple Annie's  was there when it all happened.  She had been warned that evacuation was possible, so she went to the store across from the police department to fill her gas tank.  Fire was all around them, and people congregated at the store because no shelters had been opened then.  Hurricane force winds caused power lines to break and people lost electrical power and cell service at the same time.  In addition, emergency sirens were everywhere, adding to the panic.  Thankfully, there were no fatalities in her neighborhood, and the arts and crafts community on Glades Road was not damaged.  For my quilting friends, we stopped at Susan's Quilts and they are all fine. It will be a long, hard winter for the fol...

Smoky Mountain rain keeps on falling. . . It was beautiful, but not good for hiking or outside events.  Oh, well, the Christmas lights were breathtaking, even in the rain.

Poor little guy!  He was searching for corn in a corn crib that hasn't been used for almost a century. He gave up and had something green instead. He finally got tired of being watched and ran off into the woods. Life is good.

We were hiking with a group in the Smoky Mountain National Park last Wednesday, looking for wildflowers.  Some of the people with us were telling about seeing lots of bears in Cade's Cove.  So on Thursday, with my lil' ole sister and her hub, we headed down that way. Although we looked diligently and patiently, we only saw one bear all day.  He was a fine looking feller. He was in a meadow under a black walnut tree.  We could hear him crunching on something; we are guessing that he was eating walnuts left from last fall.  He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. We found a place with lots of people stopped by the side of the road past the Cade's Cove village.  We were told there was a mother and three cubs in a den near a downed tree.  We waited for a while, but they never came out and we had places to go and promises to keep, so we didn't get to see them.  The rangers told us it was a good ye...