An Overdue Update

You remember Arthur Conlin, don't you? I told you about him here, in a post on August 17, 2013. He was my mother's great uncle, and served in two different regiments of Ohio Volunteer Infantry (86th & 170th) during the Civil War. He'd gone missing after the war and I found him (well, his grave anyway) on the Internet near the end of 2012.

Part of his story was still missing when I published that post. At the time, I still thought that he never came home from the war. And, there was the picture of the three brothers (James, Thomas, and Arthur) whose relative ages seemed to be correct, but their apparent ages suggested that the picture was taken a fair bit later than 1864. That discrepancy had yet to be explained.

In September 2013 I visited relatives in Ohio and my cousin, Don Furey, provided me some further information about Arthur Conlin's odyssey that, if nothing else, suggested an explanation for the conundrum in that picture of the Conlin brothers. What adds to the intrigue, is that Don is fairly certain that he received the "new" information from my mother. Perhaps she was just testing me.

Probate records for his father's estate, filed in Columbiana County in 1884, show that Arthur left Ohio in 1864 for Missouri. He settled initially in Chillicothe, MO and for six years he maintained a regular correspondence of letters with family members. When last heard from, in 1870, he was unmarried and living in St Joseph, MO. From then till his father's death in 1884 he was not heard from by his family and the probate court found that Arthur died "intestate and without issue".

James, Arthur, and Thomas Conlin.

In 1884 Arthur would have been 44 years old, James and Thomas 50 and 49, respectively. The brothers in the picture (above) seem to be very close to this age bracket and it suggests to me that perhaps Arthur, on hearing of his father's demise, returned to Ohio (after being declared dead?) for one last visit (and a picture) with his family before disappearing again into the American West.

That still leaves some questions unanswered about how he came to surface years later in Boise, Idaho, how he made his living, etc. At this point, however, it's unlikely that we'll learn any more on the subject. I have briefly related his story here, on his cemetery memorial page.

There was one coincidence of perhaps minor note in all this that I haven't mentioned anywhere else. Arthur was my mother's great uncle. He lived for a while in Chillicothe, MO about 1865. Thirty years later, in 1895, my dad's mother was born in Dawn, Mo. . . less than 10 miles from Chillicothe.

To Amicalola Falls With Gillian

After two weeks on the road I was getting kind of antsy to get home so, on Monday the 27th, I left Paul's and Lee's with one more stop on the way home - Atlanta. It was a fair day's drive, through Durham, then touching base in Burlington, Greensboro, Salisbury and Charlotte. I had hoped to meet Anne for lunch in Charlotte, but I had neglected some planning details and ended up getting gas in Charlotte and skipping lunch. Then it was a straight shot through Spartanburg and Greenville to Atlanta, where I spent a day and a half with my daughter, Gillian.

We took a page from our old book and spent a fair portion of the day in the North Georgia mountains. Near the center of the picture above, you can make out the very top of Amicalola Falls. In the old days - about 25 years ago - the view showed considerably more of the falls. Of course, the trees have had a few years to spread out since then. I always said these were my favorite falls, because you could drive to the base of them, then climb in your car and drive to the top.

As with so many other memories, they're close but not exactly correct. At the base of the falls there's a reflecting pool which, in the day, actually reflected the falls. And the lower parking area provided spaces right near the pool. I guess that's why I remembered being able to park at the base of the falls

You can see that the reflection is still there, which is nice for photographers, but the line of sight from the pool to the falls is blocked now and you have to take into account a brief trek from the pool along the creek to the actual base of the falls.

The creek itself offers the possibility of interesting images, though we're asked to remain on the trail and otherwise mind our p'sand q's.

I made about half the trek before finding a bench to sit on, and I gave Gillian the videocamera and sent her on ahead as my proxy. I stayed put within a few steps of the bench and kept busy shooting the surrounding forest.

Since I hadn't any recent pictures of Gillian, I took this one as she returned with some near vertical video of the falls. They'd added some wooden walkways at the base of the falls since my last trip there. I suppose it keeps visitors from wandering around too much, a middle course which probably makes it easier to keep the creek and the visitors in good shape.

More park upgrades included a second parking area part of the way up to the top. That confused me for a while, but we eventually made it up to the parking area I remembered and the very short walk to the falls overlook. This view too (above) suffers a bit from the encroachment of nearby trees. The old view, while still close, offered a much larger window than today's vista. With little choice in the lighting, save for choosing the time of day, this might be a good opportunity to use HDR. I'll have to explore that after the fact.

I left Atlanta about midnight and broke up the drive home by leaving I-20 west of Jackson, MS by veering south onto the Natchez Trace Parkway, crossing the Mississippi at Natchez, making my way across Louisiana's middle to the Sabine River and Texas. From there it was an easy drive west to Austin. The point of this excursion was that the Trace, middle Louisiana, and this particular section of Texas were all new ground for me, and you can never tell you'll find down a new road.

Wilson Gives Folk Art a Whirl

I really enjoyed the visit with Tony and Donna so don't assume that the paucity of photographs should be attributed to anything other than my willingness to sit and read, watch TV, or ride along with Tony as he's going about his daily business. We went to a movie, got our vehicles washed, walked the dog (that would be Satchel), had lunch at Jimmy John's, and most importantly, avoided over-exerting ourselves.

This fine feller is the aforementioned Satchel. Satchel has me figured out. {Parker's going to hang around for a few days without doing anything important, but he's going to keep pulling out his camera lighting off that flash-thing that I hate so much. . .} The last several visits, when I pull out my camera Satchel gets up with a great sigh and removes himself from the room. Though there is no apparent haste, he manages to be gone by the time I get the lens cap off and the camera turned on. Then, on the day I leave, he climbs up on the couch and lets me take pictures of him. Go figure. . .

On the 22nd I drove up to Paul's and Lee's new home in North Carolina. This was another period of light duty. Lee was gone for a day so Paul and I went for an area fam (an area familiarization flight) though we accomplished this without leaving the ground. The next day, I drove 40 minutes or so east to Wilson to see Patrick.

There is a park in Wilson called the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. It opened in January this year with half a dozen or so whirligigs and will eventually have 27. The restored Whirligigs are from the personal collection of the late folk artist Vollis Simpson. North Carolina, as you may imagine, is into folk art.

Pat and I checked out the park and it was interesting, certainly in scale. These things are about 25' or so up in the air. The day we visited was still, but I watched an online video from UNC showing that on the day of the dedication it was quite windy indeed. Since the whole purpose of whirligigs is to celebrate the breeze, I judged the demonstration to have been a success.

After the park, we tried out a new sandwich shop associated with a microbrewery or we tried out a new microbrewery lucky enough to have a fine sandwich shop attached. I can't remember the name of the place and I can't find the stickers I was given, though they're surely around here somewhere. In any case, this place had great sandwiches and a whole lot of beer.

By the time I got back to Paul's Lee had returned from Virginia and supper was on. Lauren and Burr came over and ate with us and we got the word on what aunt Becky's been up to. The next day Paul and I drove to the Marine base at Cherry Point and I saw the quarters that we lived in when I was in first and second grade, the base swimming pool where I learned to swim, and the base theater where we watched Saturday morning serials. We checked out Morehead City and a few miles of Atlantic Beach, then headed home.

Then Sunday, Paul, Lee and I took a drive to check out Falls Lake State Park, about 10 miles WNW of Wake Forest (the picture above), then drove into Durham. This was another area fam, I believe, since Lee was planning to attend some function at Duke the following week.

I'm going to take off Thursday and go with Karen and Richard to Brownwood to have lunch with Linda and Roger and see Roger's photo exhibit. So the last post for my Carolinas Road Trip will be delayed by a day. I'll bet you can't wait.

On the Beach at Sullivan's Island

I took a little break the last couple days to watch some football. The Longhorns won and the Horned Frogs won. The Cowboys didn't play, but they'd won their last game, so that's good enough.

Leaving the mountains behind, I headed for Charleston on Saturday to spend a few days with Tony and Donna and, as luck would have it, we were able to watch the Longhorns beat Iowa State and Clemson beat Boston College. Ellen and David came over for dinner and football so, by the end of the evening we had a house full of well fed, happy fans.

Ellen knew I had my cameras and that I was continually on the lookout for places to shoot, so she offered to take me out to the beach on Sullivan's Island near Fort Moultrie the following evening. The idea was to catch fishing boats coming back in at sunset, but we failed to check with the fishing fleet.

I'm not quite sure why we thought we'd have a lot of boat traffic. The concept was attractive, the arrival of the fishing fleet at sunset, but it never materialized. Ah, woe is me! I was going to have to make do, shooting a pretty girl and her dog on the beach at sunset.

At least the sun didn't stand me up this time, as it had Tuesday morning at Cade's Cove. In fact, the sunset was well worth the drive out to the island. I even managed to get a boat or two in at least some of the pictures.

Ellen is showing me, in the picture above, the crab shell which held so much interest for Murphy, her West Highland Terrier.

The sun was sinking fast, so our little photo shoot ended up taking about 25 minutes - total. As much as I enjoyed Ellen's (and Murphy's) company, it's probably a good thing it didn't take very long. The gnats and/or sand fleas were out in force.

So, as the sun sank in the Atlantic, we left all the critters except Murphy where we found them and headed home.

I had one more photographic chore to do during my Charleston visit. Having seen several pictures of the marsh from the back porch of Tony's house I thought I should take the time to get the shots necessary for an HDR image. The problem was that the trees and shrubs always seem to be in silhouette because the marsh and the dock were in full sunlight.

I was surprised, therefore, when I discovered an especially well lit scene when I created a panorama of the view. I didn't need to make it HDR after all.

Mount Mitchell and Linn Cove Viaduct

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I picked up a couple of soft drinks at the beginning of the day's drive. I started getting thirsty after leaving Craggy Gardens, then drove a while longer before I remembered the drinks in the plastic bag on the console. I pulled one out and started to open it on a straight stretch of road. . . thank heavens. I hadn't thought about it previously, but Hendersonville's elevation is about 2200 feet and I was approaching Mount Mitchell, at 6683 feet. You know where I'm going with this, right? I had no sooner broken the seal on the soda bottle when I was reminded that the air pressure differential was likely to cause difficulties. And it did, all over my lap. I got the cap dogged down in short order, but both hands were very sticky. It was bad enough that I returned to Craggy Gardens, where I could wash my hands in the restroom. There was no way I was going to touch my cameras without washing my hands.

But my time was my own, and no one was waiting for me. So, back to Mount Mitchell. This first picture was taken at the Mount Mitchell visitors center or ranger station (I'm not sure which) located at Stepps Gap, about halfway between the Parkway turn off and the Mount Mitchell Summit. I think I could be happy there, at least most of the year; you can't beat the view.

The picture above is looking east or southeast from the visitor center parking lot, and the one below was taken from there as well, but definitely looking southeast. You can probably see halfway to Charlotte from here.

This shot was taken at the upper parking lot on Mount Mitchell itself. The view's looking northwest towards Burnsville in Yancey County. I may have mentioned that I was told years ago that in Madison and Yancey counties they hang the fields from the clouds, and plow both sides. That sounds very efficient. I didn't think it necessary to hike to the summit for a shot from the observation deck.

The drive north continued to be perfect, outstanding weather, cool temperatures, and only a little traffic.

These two pictures (above and below) were taken at the Laurel Knob overlook, where I decided to have lunch. The vista above was the reason for the overlook, and it was a good choice. But when you turn around 180°, you see the cliff face ain't too shabby either.

I knew I was getting close when I started seeing more and more cars parked beside the road. Then I was on the viaduct before I knew it, and started wondering where I'd find a spot to get a picture of it. I needn't have worried. All those cars were parked way too close for anyone to get any decent shots of the viaduct. There were good views to the south, but no reason to park where they had. As close as I can figure, using Google maps after the fact, I shot the view looking south (above) and the view of the viaduct itself (below) from a small parking area about 2 miles beyond the viaduct. The somewhat threatening feature above the viaduct is called the Black Rock Cliffs. Up on the ridge above them are the Raven Rocks. The Viaduct, the Cliffs, and the Rocks are all on the southeast slope Grandfather Mountain.

After the Viaduct, I backtracked on the Parkway to near Spruce Pine, then took NC 226 down to US 70 through Old Fort and on to Black Mountain. I hadn't quite finished by visiting Thursday, so I dropped by to see Susan and Marshall for a while before heading back to the motel. It was a nice visit, even if I made Susan late for her meeting. I felt like I'd gotten some good pictures in the last few days, but I was ready to leave in the morning for Charleston and relax for a few days with Tony and Donna.

Early Morning Drive to Craggy

It's Friday, my last day in the Asheville area. Today's agenda is, shall we say, open-ended. I'll top off my gas tank, get a light snack for breakfast and a soft drink or two for the morning's drive up the Blue Ridge Pkwy. I'll avoid the horrendous traffic on US 25 and get on the parkway at Bent Creek and head north. I'm not sure how far I'll go, certainly no farther than Blowing Rock. I'll get some shots at Craggy Gardens and Mount Mitchell for sure. I indulged in some wishful thinking for a while, supposing I might manage to make it to Linville Falls, but reality set in. . . it's a reasonably level hike as I remember it but, as short as it is, it's way too long pour moi. Anyway, as John Wayne would say, let's "slap some bacon on some biscuits and mount up. We're burnin' daylight."

The best thing about these road trips is that I'm forced (by my focus on photography) to assume a conventional schedule (i.e., in bed by midnight and up with the sun. It doesn't necessarily work that way for me at home).

These first three pictures were all taken between Asheville and Craggy Gardens. Mostly I'm just enjoying the solitude of early morning on the Parkway and taking advantage of the low sun and the even lower clouds. Before long the sun will be too high for most shots and the clouds will have burned away.

This is the first shot at Craggy Gardens. Coming north, you approach the Gardens around this blind curve. I parked in the first space, crossed the road and walked back towards the curve for the picture. The mountain drops off to the left and, when the clouds clear away, there'll be a view of the Burnett Reservoir, north of Black Mountain.

However, I'm more than happy to trade the view of the reservoir for the low clouds here. Who wouldn't? Sunrise has long been my favorite time of the day, at least as far back as my time in the Navy. I've seen the sun rise in Athens, Barcelona, Rome, Kingsville and Adak; I'll take sunrise in the mountains of Western Carolina any time.

This view of Craggy Pinnacle (5892') on the left, and Craggy Dome (> 6080') on the right were taken from the same spot as the previous photo; I just turned to my left about 120°. The Craggy Gardens visitor center is just out of the frame to the left. The picnic area is on the far side of Craggy Pinnacle. You might also note the tunnel through the shoulder of Craggy Pinnacle.

These last two shots were taken from the picnic area parking lot on the north side of Craggy Pinnacle. Dominating the upper view is Craggy Dome. It's hard to get to, crawling under the rhododendrons (or as they're referred to in the mountains, a "Laurel hell"), but there's a shallow cave (really just an overhang) up there in that fold that can protect you from the rain on a cold wet afternoon. . .

The angle here is a little slight, but the sun, the lens flare, and the glare off the wet parking lot improve the composition enough that I couldn't just ignore it. There are any number of ways to save the picture.

Well, it's still early enough that I couldn't head back to town yet, so in tomorrow's post you'll get a few more pictures of the Parkway north of Asheville. Enjoy.

Chimney Rock and Visiting Friends

I felt pretty good the next day, Thursday. No new aches or pains as a result of my tumble. And this day dawned bright and clear. I was going to stick close to town, visiting a few friends from nearly 50 years ago, and wandering about to see how things had changed.

My first trip to Asheville was in 1962 and, from my very first year in school there, I'd heard of Chimney Rock, southeast of Asheville and northeast of Hendersonville. I'd never been there, and decided this was probably the best chance I'd have. So, at 9 o'clock, my friend Debbie picked me up at the motel and we drove to Chimney Rock. The picture above doesn't give a very good idea of how high the observation deck is. You can see in the sign that there's an elevator to the gift shop and deck, and you can climb a flight of wooden stairs to get the grand view at the base of the flagpole. I wouldn't swear to it, but I believe going up in the elevator I heard one of the attendants say that it was 26 or 27 stories high. Yeah, I know. Right?

You'll probably note that there's not a lot of variety in the shots here. The picture above is the leftmost frame of the panorama below. While it's a great view, and I like both pictures, you really need something else to do if you're going to spend the whole morning there.

In this case, it was a good thing I had Debbie with me to visit. It turned out that, because Thursday was National Earthquake Day or some such, state inspectors were on hand to conduct an elevator emergency drill. For most of it, Debbie and I didn't even notice as we reminisced about four decades ago and brought each other up to date on mutual friends and acquaintances. Eventually, we realized everyone was outside on the deck. When someone asked to be allowed back inside to visit the restroom, we learned that drill was still going on. They piggybacked a fire drill on the elevator drill and were in the process of clearing smoke out of the building and resetting the controls for the elevator. Another 15 or 20 minutes and we were on our way down. We'd passed with flying colors.

Next up, Debbie and I headed to Hendersonville to meet Sallie for lunch. Sallie was my French II teacher in my senior year (1965-66). She also taught Debbie, who was three years behind me in school, so it was like old home week. It was good to break bread and get a chance to visit with them both.

After lunch I took my leave of Debbie and Sallie and headed to Arden, where I visited with one of my favorite people ever. Alice is the mother of one of my favorite high school classmates (Anne), former Dean of Women at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and one of the classiest people I know. I spent the whole afternoon with her and enjoyed every minute. As an extra treat, I was able to visit with her son John and daughter Mary for a few minutes as well. An all around good day.

If One Day in the Smokies Is Good, Two must Be Great!

The local weather on Tuesday night promised clearing skies and good weather for the following day. I enjoyed Tuesday so much, even in the rotten weather, that my new plan for Wednesday was to return to the Smokies while the rivers and creeks were still high and the photographs would have better lighting.

Of course, redoing the Smokies would give me two more shots of everything, starting with the Oconaluftee visitor center and back towards Cade's Cove, then returning to the southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Pkwy (near the visitor center) and heading north on America's favorite road. Sorting through my pictures would be confusing, having passed each creek, waterfall and mountain three times in two days. And poor record-keeping wouldn't help either, when trying to identify pictured locations. I could worry about that later.

First stop Wednesday morning was the Oconaluftee visitor center, which I photographed from the same parking spot I had used the day before. It was still too wet to explore the homestead in more detail, but I got panoramas of the same scene from consecutive days for comparison. I've posted many of the panoramas on my Flickr site. To see them, a Google search for "wfp48" should get you there.

This first picture shows how fast and high the Oconaluftee River was early Wednesday morning. I stopped a couple of places and shot some video. I'm not very adept yet at videography, but the soundtracks captured with these short shots of the rivers make even them worthwhile.

This shot, looking south, was taken at a large overlook on US 441 not far from Newfound Gap on the North Carolina side. Higher up the mountain behind me is the Clingman's Dome access road and the North Carolina/Tennessee state line. It was a great place to shoot, because the clouds moving through kept changing the view.

The access road gate was open today, so I decided an excursion to Clingman's Dome was in order. The road wanders back and forth across the ridge and this shot, looking north into Tennessee, was one of these places. It looked completely different ten minutes later when I was headed back to 441. As is often the case, The Dome itself was shrouded in cloud.

This shot too was  taken on the access road close to the ridge. I was on the North Carolina side and the cloud roiling up behind the pine tree in the center of the frame was on the Tennessee side.

To take full advantage of one of these photo excursions, the photographer has to manage his scope. You can stop at an overlook and shoot the grand view this seems to go on forever, then wander around a bit and shoot a small, intimate detail 20 feet away of a stream splashing by a rock. It would be a shame to miss either picture, but changing scope takes practice. It's all about being able to see the forest for the trees. . . and the trees for the forest.

These last two pictures (above and below) emphasize the contrast between light and shadow as your stare into the trees uncovers the layers of the forest. The river in both pictures is the Little River on the road to Cade's Cove.

My return engagement to the Smokies on Wednesday was not without incident. After rejoining 441 and crossing into Tennessee I saw a pull off near the entrance of a tunnel and was enticed to stop by several parking spaces and a pair of small waterfalls at the top of a grassy slope. The change in elevation between the parking spaces and the top of the slope was only about 15 feet. I gathered my cameras and made my way up a gravel path to the base of the waterfalls. I took several shots and a little video and it occurred to me that I should shoot the tunnel entrance from from this higher elevation. I needed a better angle on the tunnel, however, so I moved along the edge of the grassy slope.

I took a shot of the tunnel, but the view was mediocre at best and I was ready to move on. One step on some wet leaves was all it took. I realized my error in judgment immediately when I slipped, cameras in both hands, landing hard on the wet grass and finding myself a couple seconds later lying at the bottom of the slope, marveling at the realization that neither of the cameras sustained any damage at all. When I looked up, a man who witnessed my tumble had just pulled into one of the parking spaces and was getting out of his car. I made it my feet and, on assuring him that I was okay, we went our separate ways.

I continued retracing my drive from the day before, stopping at pull offs, judging various views, taking pictures. Back through Sugarlands to the Little River Gorge Rd on the way to Cade's Cove. It was a beautiful autumn day in the Smokies, I was early enough that traffic was still relatively light, the rivers and creeks were still running high. . . This was great! I was a bit muddy, but not sore in the least after my roll down the hill. What really surprised me, however, was that I was suddenly uninterested in taking any more pictures. Then it hit me. My roll down the hill had given me a shot of adrenaline and that, in turn, screwed up my blood sugar. Twenty or thirty minutes after slipping, I was hypoglycemic. Case solved. The only problem was, I still couldn't care less about taking more pictures. I wasn't hungry, but I really needed something to eat. Tomorrow's soon enough to take pictures.

A Wet Start in the Smokies. . .

I thought, when I left on my October road trip to the Carolinas, that I was getting out of Austin just ahead of the rain. As it turned out, however, I was overtaken by the storms in less than 30 miles, in the neighborhood of Georgetown. And, besides the weather, I'd discovered a glitch in the GPS system: in spite of my preparation, the GPS device could access all my waypoints but none of my routes. You know, all the routes I spend so much time developing in my trip preparation. In this case, I had stopped short of testing the routes in the local area, which would have been easy had I thought them necessary. I'm almost 66 now, and learning as I go.

It was an enjoyable morning in spite of the rain as I tracked across Northeast Texas, and Northern Louisiana. Focusing on the traffic and the rain, and the traffic in the rain, I was surprised on approaching the Mississippi River how dark it had become (or how little it had lightened since sunrise), how windy it was suddenly, and how much debris was sharing the sky with the torrents of rain. Several miles straight ahead (I-20 is nothing if not straight) there was a patch of blue sky, the first I had seen since daylight (such as it was). In no time at all, I decided that was where I wanted to be, not here in this nasty storm. As soon as I stepped on the gas I had to come off it immediately. The semi with the apparently empty trailer, ahead of me and in the next lane, was demonstrating what could happen on a wet highway in high winds. While keeping the tractor under control, the trailer swung left like a paddock gate. As quickly as that happened, the gate opened again and the trailer took up its proper position in trail of the tractor. I gave the situation about half a second to stabilize and headed for the patch of blue.

Crossing the Mississippi a couple miles down the road the rain stopped (for all of 43 miles, between Vicksburg and Jackson). It resumed on the east edge of Jackson and continued unabated through my arrival in Sweetwater, TN (which I had come to think of as my homeport for the evening). Reviewing my day, I made a mental note to listen in future to the local weather on the radio rather than allow my CDs to anesthetize my brain. The radio in Vicksburg (and all across Northern Louisiana, most likely) could have been telling me all about the tornado(s) I nearly caught up with.

The plan for Tuesday morning was to leave the motel in time to take pictures of the sunrise in Cade's Cove on the western edge of the Great Smoky Mountains NP. I was third in line at the Cove at sunrise, but the sun never showed up! Not one to dwell on things I cannot change, I blew off the Cove (I'd already been there on better days than this) and just sat in the queue until there was enough ambient light to appreciate driving through the forest and head for Asheville.

All the pictures in today's post were taken from the drivers seat of my Sierra through rain splattered windshields mostly, and occasionally (if the wind and the rain died down enough) through an open window. Some might find the pictures dreary; the lighting was poor, the waves of rain on the glass blurred things. A lot of negatives, to be sure. But I was thrilled to be back in my mountains, even on such a day, and I knew the weather could only get better.

The three things I could concentrate on were the autumn color, the Smokey Mountain mists that give them their name, and the high, fast water in the creeks and rivers, which is unusual in October (one of the drier months of the year in the Smokies). As I left Cade's Cove and the Little River behind me I Turned South at Sugarlands and headed up and south to Newfound Gap where I crossed into North Carolina. I was already thinking about returning here as soon as the rain cleared out and, hopefully, while the rivers and creeks were still running high. How many days that would be remained to be seen.

The first thing I discovered in North Carolina was a gate across the Clingman's Dome access road (as though that was necessary). I could barely see the gate for the clouds.

What I've always liked best about US 441 are the many little waterfalls that come right up to the shoulder of the road, and never more so than today. Typically, tourist traffic would keep me from pulling off to snap a couple pictures. Today, traffic wasn't a factor at all. The picture above was shot (from the drivers seat), across the cab, through the open passenger window, zoomed out as far as I could go. It might have been cropped better had I managed to park at a better angle but, all in all, I think it turned out pretty well.

This is the Smokey Mountain homestead at the Oconaluftee visitors center at the North Carolina entrance to the park. For years it seemed like all my pictures here were taken about high noon because I was driving from Asheville or Atlanta or passing through on my way somewhere else. Today, the rain is steady and the clouds are thick. It looks like early morning, but it's about 20 minutes till 10 AM. If it wasn't so wet, I'd have gotten out and wandered down to the river to see what the high water had done or was doing. But it was warm and dry in the Sierra and I was ready to go see what things were like up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Up on the Blue Ridge things change quickly. You come around a bend at 10 miles per hour in the mist and, if you're lucky, you find an overlook to pull off the road and something in the immediate area to make you glad you've got your camera with you. On a day like today, the overlooks are just a place to park off the road. Vistas that often go on forever, show you on days like today just the inside of a cloud.

Sometimes, in fact, it seems like you have to rush to snap a picture or two before the overlook becomes socked in (an old aviation term usually applied to airports rendered unusable by fog). You might wonder about these pictures; they look like it's been rainy but not necessarily raining at the time I shot them. In each instance I've taken some Photoshop liberties with the picture to give you a sense of how I saw things that morning while minimizing the effects the weather gods were employing to ruin my first day in the mountains. They clearly failed to understand that any day in the Smokies or other Western North Carolina mountains is a fine day indeed.

As I mentioned, things change quickly on the Blue Ridge. The picture above was taken about 11:15 at an overlook some distance south of Balsam Gap. I can't remember its name, but the sign in the center of the picture tells visitors what the elevation is and that this place is the highest elevation on the Blue Ridge Pkwy. Wikipedia gives even more information: "The highest point on the parkway (south of Waynesville, near Mount Pisgah in North Carolina) is 6053 feet. . . above sea level on Richland Balsam Mountain at Milepost 431, and is often closed from November to April due to inclement weather such as snow, fog, and even freezing fog from low clouds." It wasn't November yet and, in spite of the weather, I was surprised at the number of visitors I encountered at these very wet overlooks.

Normally, I go on a blogging binge and put out seven or eight or more posts on consecutive days until I finish my trip report. It's taken so long to get this first post out, I can't guarantee how quickly, or regularly, the rest will follow. They will follow, however, and I hope you'll check back to see how things turned out. (I'll let you know when I've reached the end of the trip.)