Smoky Mountains National Park

The Smoky Mountains are one billion years old.  It is a hardwood forest of basswood, birch, maple, tulip trees, sugar maple, hickory, birch and beech, etc.  The Frazier fir is being destoryed by an adelgid which  denudes the bark and leaves.

It is called the Smoky Mountains because of the haze.  Some of it is produced by the air breathing leaves which exude water and hydrocarbons.  Some of the haze is from pollution which is getting worse all the time.

Do you want to live here?  60" of rain a year!

There are so many redbuds and dogwoods surprising you on hikes and on the roadways.

We hiked to Laurel Falls and really did walk on the Applachian Trail - not far, though!!!

The hardwood trees make the forest so "lacy" looking.  They are beautiful.

The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom.  Trilliums and dwarf iris flowers.

The Appalachia people used gourds for bird feeders, sewed quilts for all their homes, including those with a newspaper background, and played the guitar, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer and fiddle for their music; Scotch-Irish, gospel songs, African-American spirituals and all.  They were and are industrious people, using everything on the land to survive, except sugar and coffee.  We are honored to be here.

Now to see Shahela and then to Mammoth Caves, Kentucky, and to our nephew's family in Ohio before we begin our next project, which we will be leaders, in Pine Creek, Indiana!