Another day of hiking! This time we headed up Porter's Creek and Brushy Mountain trails. No, we did not hike to the top (Mt. LeConte), just hiked a few hours up and a few hours back to the car. We took loaded backpacks to practice for the upcoming West Coast Trail...well at least John carried a fully loaded pack. I carried a sorta loaded pack and was pretty pleased with myself till I got busted when John picked my pack up to take it out of the car. Whoops! :-)

Luckily most of the morning was overcast so we didn't bake. The temps were in the high 70's-low 80's with occasional gentle breezes. As with most of our hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we finished our hike with vegetable soup and a cool, fresh salad at the Brass Lantern in Gatlinburg. Yum, yum!


Moisture in the air is hanging thick! The temps may have been a little cooler but the humidity was right around 100%. We (I) really suffered from it on the hike up.

Lush greenery is always a photo op in the Smokies. Just point and shoot and you have a decent picture!

Brushy Mountain Trail

A mossy rock overhangs a small pool of water. The mosquitoes were swarming around the pool, I took the picture and ran.

We found a several of flame azalea bushes still in bloom. They are so bright against the green foliage.

Rhododendron is coming in bloom. This bud is just opening.

Several rhododendron bushes were in full bloom. These pinkish white blooms are so cool looking in a very warm forest.

Lacy ferns grow thick along the trail.

Bee Balm in all it's scarlet glory.

A field of Bee Balm growing close to a stream. This was a mosquitoe and tick haven! We didn't linger long.

Tonight John and I went downtown Knoxville to enjoy the street festival, "Saturday Night on the Town." We were previously unfamiliar with this particular event and I was not too enthusiastic about it when we left. John, fortunately, is a little more patient and suggested we try it again next year with lawn chairs in hand. Our back ends were pretty sore after sitting on the curb for a couple of hours.

Saturday Night on the Town is held during the annual gathering of "The Honda Hoot." Best I can tell, it is one of the ways the city and local sponsors keep the motorcyclists entertained. One key ingredient to any great festival is good food. We had hoped to sample food from local restaurants, instead we got traveling vendor food...watered down lemon aide and so-so Chicken Divine (seen above).

The festival featured a concert stage on each end of Gay Street. We pretty much stayed away from the country stage and hung out at the rock end of the street where we listed to some really great music. On stage (above) is DishWater Blonde.

While my sister and future brother-in-law were busy clearing downed tree limbs in his future father-in-law's yard, I accompanied his future father-in-law to the "Images of the Imagination" Art Show at the Farragut Town Hall. Confused?

Guess which sister had more fun, the one who stayed home with her fiance and cleaned up downed limbs, or the sister who accompanied their father to an art show and reception :-) Hmmm... sweat or air conditioning? Daddy and I had a great time, Mike and Leslie did a great job!

Future brother-in-law Mike with his power tools.

A large limb at the top of Daddy's gum tree fell, taking three lower limbs with it. Mike and Leslie had a lot of clean-up to do.

Man tools...power, oil and gas!

Daylilies in bloom in Daddy's garden.

From the balcony of Farragut Town Hall, we are looking down at guests and the harpist. The reception was a celebration of art and flowers in honor of the silver anniversary of the Town of Farragut. This was a juried art show and a judged flower show.

Still on the balcony, our focus is now on one of Daddy's two pictures accepted in this show, "The Zebra" (center back).

This is the second painting, "Frog." The Frog happens to be one of Mother's favorites.

A closer view of the Zebra and the flower arrangement designed to compliment the painting. The floral arrangement won second place in the flower show.

This painting usually hanges over my fireplace. I can't wait to get it home!

Roses always catch my eye. This arrangement was designed to compliment a painting of a single rose stem. I gotta tell you, this many roses in a silver compote is a work of art itself!

Next to Daddy's work, this was my favorite painting-floral combination. Not only is the painting of the sunflower bold and rich, the floral arrangement is stunning.
The fun part of any flower show (my mom use to be an active participant) is the single stem judging. Just look at all of the beautiful lilies, cone flower, balloon flowers etc.

Thursday night, the Sierra Club hosted a Beginning Backpackers Seminar under the leadership of Ron Shrieve and Steve Harvey. This was the club's first effort with backpack training; Ron and Steve were unsure about the response. By "showtime" 34 people had signed up and everyone who signed up, showed up!

Ron and Steve enlisted several of SC's backpacking "experts" to participate. Duane Simmons and Will Skelton were assigned food, stove and "how to #%I# in the woods." Bill Adams and Ray Payne talked about tents, pads and sleeping bags, while Steve and John Finger tackled the topic of packs and navigation. Ron and I shared the vast topics of boots, footwear, clothing and layering. Whew! It was a lot to cover and even more to absorb in 3-hours.

Participants were broken into 3 groups and rotated between speakers. I thought the level of enthusiasm shown by the participants and the "experts" was catching! Lots of questions were asked and the participants were very hands on, trying, looking and touching. I was particularly pleased that the women in the group really bonded. Lots of conversation was had about a "women only" backpack.

What a great way to spend the evening. Congratulations to Ron and Steve for a very successful presentation!


Setting up tents on the lawn behind the Fellowship Hall. From left (red shirt) Bill Adams, John Finger, Ray Payne, Duane Simmons (front-big orange shorts) and our leader, Ron Shrieve (grey shirt). At this point, we were about 30 minutes from opening presentation.

People arrived just about on time and everyone that signed up, showed up! The participants were attentive and most stayed until 9:30 pm or later.

Ron opened the seminar talking about the local hiking clubs and hiking schedules, Leave No Trace, and organizational and administrative issues when hiking with a club. Steve was standing to his left but somehow I missed getting him in my viewfinder.

Bill and Ray talked about sleeping bags, pads and tents. Ray, our most experienced backpacker and long time champion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is in the yellow shirt on the left of the picture. Bill is hands on with the sleeping bags.

Will and Duane shared duties talking about stoves and food. In this photo, Will is lighting his backpacking companion, the Seva stove

Duane talking about food and sanitation. Duane is the most creative backpack chef we hike with. He is also willing to carry the weight.

Today was another hike day on the road to the West Coast Trail. We planned to hike the Noland Divide Trail but our plans changed quickly when we arrived at Sugarlands Visitors Center (Great Smoky Mountains National Park) and discovered a tree had fallen across 441. A ranger informed us that the road was closed until emergency crews could remove it, expected wait...at least an hour.

Sitting in our car in the Sugarlands parking lot, John grabbed our trail map and looked for a trail close by. A heavy rain started to fall and we briefly discussed going home (rain in the park is becoming our greatest hiking challenge). Instead we drove to the Cove Mountain trailhead, located just behind park headquarters. The rain quit as we pulled in a parking spot. We were pleased to find that the sky above us was a brilliant blue although a glance through the trees revealed that nearby mountains were socked in under heavy cloud cover.

We hiked quickly covering about 6-miles. We had the trail to ourselves except for 2 couples we passed during the last 30 minutes. As with our recent hikes, this one was uphill for the out trip and downhill for the return. We turned around at the 2 hour point. Unfortunately, as we started back to the car, the skies clouded and the rain began. It was a hard, pelting rain so we stopped to put on ponchos. Our return hike was mostly in the rain and we were pretty damp by the time we arrived at the car.

Vegetable soup and a big salad at the Brass Lantern chased away our rain chill. Another hike completed in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

As the mountain laurel begins to fade, the flame azalea comes in bloom. The azalea is one of the most spectacular sights in the Smokies.

Flame azalea from another angle.

Cataract Falls is located about .1-mile from the trail head.

Look what I found lurking in my camera when I was deleting photos...a picture of John and his brothers. The picture is from John's nephew's wedding in early April. Can you tell who the father of the groom is? Just in case the tux doesn't give it away, the f-o-g is John's older brother, Bill (center). On the left is John's younger brother David. Tres handsome guys!

Exciting news from upper East Tennessee!! John's 15 year old son, Lee, came in 3rd in the Roan Groan junior age bracket. In case you don't know, the Roan Groan is a 30-mile bicycle race originating near the covered bridge in Elizabethton, TN, elevation-1200' and finishing at Carver's Gap on Roan Mountain, elevation-5512'....a long slow climb!! Congratulations to Lee and to his very proud papa!

Yesterday we bailed on Steve's Cataloochee backpack. We were the last to do so...Bill and Jim had already canceled do to illness and other reasons. Our canceling freed Steve to participate in SMHC's 18-mile death march day hike and John and I free to play.

This morning we headed downtown to the craft and farmers market on Market Square. This is the second summer for the local market and I am disappointed. In our travels we have happened upon some wonderful downtown Saturday morning markets (most recently in Missoula, MT) with lots of locally grown food, crafts and activities. Our city has a lot of marketing to do to make the Market Square farmers market even somewhat successful. What gives Knoxville, this is another great opportunity to draw people downtown!!

After purchasing leaf lettuce, organically grown sweet peas, wild blueberries and a loaf of Gran John's Ho-made Original potato bread (baked by the daughter and granddaughter of the owners of The Wilsons restaurant in Townsend, TN- now closed), we walked across the mall to the Market Square Kitchen (formally the Soup Kitchen). We grabbed an outside table and settled into a breakfast of eggs, toast, coffee and juice. The food was very "diner" ish, the service very slow and the coffee only okay, but we had a great time sitting outside, watching the bits of tourist traffic that floated in from downtown hotels.

After breakfast, we dropped our purchases in the car and strolled on Gay Street, pressing our faces against the windows of the old S & S Cafeteria (soon to be a movie theater), the empty Kimballs' Jewelry (thumbs down to Kimballs for removing the Hope clock when they moved to Bearden), the Fowlers Furniture building and others. The interiors of the buildings are in various stages of decay, their grandeur fading with time. The city is working on "deals" to rehab or replace. We talked about how nice it would be to buy a condo in one of the many buildings under renovation and how much we would miss our yard care if we did so (just kidding about the yard :-).

A lightening bug caught my attention when I walked outside this evening. I stopped, stood very still and watched the light show in my yard. As one firefly lit up, dozens responded. Childhood memories of summer evenings chasing fireflies flooded my mind. My sisters and I use to race around the yard, hands cupped together to capture the flashing bugs. Sometimes I would catch one and open my cupped hands only wide enough to see the firefly light up my palms like a flashlight. Sometimes the bugs got smashed in our hands and the bug juices would stay illuminated for what seemed to be forever. Tonight I seriously considered taking my shoes off and running after the lightening bugs... maybe tomorrow night!

Incredible! Straight out of the Bayou, 8 pounds of large shrimp from a troller's nets on Sunday to me today...and "headless" too. Marie, thanks for staying up late last night to pop the heads. Must make a N'Orleans girl feel like she is home again!

Of course fresh shrimp do not come task free. After work, John and I sorted the shrimp, prepared several dozen for freezing and the rest for immediate eating! Around 9:00 pm, I called my dad to let him know I was driving over with 1.5 pounds of shrimp. To my surprise, he was standing at the window when I arrived, pot of hot water, shrimp boil and vinegar in hand. In went the shrimp for a quick 5 minute steam. We stood over the pot and watched the grey, translucent shrimp boil to a succulent pink. We could hardly contain our anticipation as we drained the pot. The cocktail sauce that Daddy had uncapped remained untouched, not needed on these sweet, tender shrimp! When I left (bag of Bing cherries in hand- an exchange for shrimp), Daddy was still shelling and eating. Not sure how many shrimp made it to his fridge for lunch tomorrow.

It is a happy June 1, 2005 for me!