Tennessee scrapbook

This is what we call the "hodge podge vacation photos" wrap-up post!

Here's everything I haven't covered yet, in the form of my 10 miscellaneous favorite photos:

1) My chair and my book and my coffee mug, on the cabin's porch.

2) I could go on and on about how much I liked the cabin we booked through Air BNB, but one of our favorite features was Copper, our hosts' dog who roamed freely on the property. He was a beagle (or something close to it) and every morning when I was out on the porch, he would putter around the mountain and give his little howls. Sometimes he would come over and say hello, which we loved. It was our first vacation away from Wish, and we were very happy to have a little dog nearby.

3) From "our" porch, we could see a couple of the classic ranges in the Great Smoky Mountains - you know, those wavy lines created by the rounded hill tops. Oh, Reader, I loved them so. I mean, I'm not exaggerating. When I got home, I realized that I had taken nearly the exact same picture of those mountains, like, hundreds of times.

4) Refer to #3. The lines!

5) One day, we drove to Cades Cove, a popular 11-mile driving loop in the middle of the national park that brings visitors past historic buildings and lovely fields - that sort of thing. In the summer, it can get mega-crowded - I've read it can take up to four hours to drive that loop - and we got just a small sense of that on a warm fall Sunday afternoon. We parked at the visitor center and walked along a path with a few of the buildings grouped together into interpretive exhibits, including this grist mill:

6) We were driving along the Cades Cove loop, and all of a sudden I looked to the left and saw a scene straight out of my puzzle. "It's my puzzle!" I yelled, and reached over the driver to document it. I wish I could tell you we continued up the road and coincidentally saw the exact scene, but we didn't. This was as close as it got. And now it doesn't even really look like the actual puzzle, but some parts are the same, okay?

7) For as often as I lug my camera around, we don't really take a lot of current photos of the two of us. On this trip, for as much as Josh feigned disinterest in this, I got better at setting up the timer function on my camera and then balancing it on top of the car. Voila! Souvenir!

8) Ha! See  #3 and #4. Actually, I like this particular wavy-lines photo because we usually didn't get back to the cabin until after the sun set on most days, so it was neat to see the late afternoon light on the mountains. And the red trees. I was surprised by how many trees still had a few brilliant leaves clinging to their branches for mid-November, and you know I was happy about that.

9) Another day we drove over to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee and a great 360-degree view of the national park when the weather is cooperative. As our little car climbed and climbed up the switchbacks, we approached the area known as Chimney Tops and there were foggy clouds hanging low over the peaks, and I thought for sure we wouldn't get a good view. There was also hoarfrost at the higher elevations, with blue skies and then fall colors still hanging on a little lower.

10) Once we got all the way up to the parking lot at Clingman's Dome - and then hiked one-half mile straight up to the observation tower - the skies had cleared and it was a beautiful day to check out the view!

Oh, I do love those wavy lines. I think we covered only a tiny bit of what the Great Smoky Mountains has to offer - we didn't even make it into the eastern half of the park in North Carolina! - but I hope I get a chance to go back to explore some more.