A Word About the Smokies

I have wanted to visit Great Smokey Mountain National Park for as long as I can remember. I had my walls plastered with images of the Smokies from calendars, magazines, the travel section of the newspaper. Back before people called it a "vision board", back when it was just "stuff hung on my wall". I looked at those images of all the splendor of the Smokies and dreamed of going. And now I'm here.

The Smokies are everything I dreamed they would be. We are hiking through right on the cusp of spring, when the flowers are just starting to poke their heads out, but not quite on full bloom.
I feel like I walking in a Monet painting with all the shades of green: the bright green of the grass, the muted green of the moss on fallen logs, the dark, earthy brownish-green of the moss along the ground, and the light, yellowish spring green of the buds on the trees. The ground is covered with delicate white blossoms with just a touch of pink inside which, from a distance, looks like a dusting of snow. Here and there are the still curled petals of trout lillies in a sunshiny yellow. We have even seen a plum colored trillium flower that we did not know existed.

Up higher than the flowery meadows, we hiked along ridges, quite literally one foot on North Carolina, the other on Tennessee, with steep, startling mountain views on either side.

Finally, we descended into dark, cool forest paths with rivers in deep ravines.

Mark one off on the life list, but I'll surely make a mental note to come back to this beautiful place again on the future.