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!

Our family is riding the birthday wave! We capped off Memorial Day weekend with a combined birthday lunch celebrating Leslie's birthday (June 1) and my birthday (May 27). What fun! Go figure, as kids we use to demand individual parties.

The restaurant of choice was PF Chang's, an "upscale" Chinese restaurant. John spent a bit of time puzzled as to why, on one of the most traditional cookout weekends of the year, we were sitting in a chinese restaurant eating expensive "cuisine." I didn't have a good answer, especially when burgers, dogs and fries can be consumed guilt free today. We settled on a very good grilled salmon salad and enjoyed some of the goodies that the rest of the family ordered. Mother, Daddy, Carol, John and Mike helped us celebrate. Sorry family, the one group picture was not printable; next time we will take two.

Looking forward to doing this again soon. Father's Day is just around the corner!


John and me at PF Chang's

Sisters celebrating birthdays! Mother is trying to figure out how she had two daughters 5 days apart, 4 years apart. Leslie and I have our twin necklaces on. That's what we get for beading together.

Yum, yum...oreo cake from Marble Slab Creamery

Maybe we will share the cake, maybe we won't!

Saturday night, John and I took in an early feature of "Stars Wars, Revenge of the Sith." This is the 6th in the series of 6 Star Wars films and unfortunately I think I missed a couple. This fact did not impair my enjoyment of the film at all, but it did cause a problem when John tried to explain the progression of the films. I became totally confused! Oh well! The film was very enjoyable on it's own and I am familiar with the main characters so I will leave it at that!

This morning we were up early to get in some hiking. With just a couple of months to go to our West Coast Trail adventure, we are anxious to increase our hike intensity. John picked the Road Prong Trail, which begins as a part of the Chimney Top Trail and breaks away to the left after a mile of hiking. Although only a little under 7 miles round trip, we climbed 2,500' feet in 3+ miles and dropped the same on the return hike.

We initially thought we would have the trail to ourselves; most hikers were going to the Chimney Tops. Quickly we discovered that Road Prong had a lot of hikers too. After a bit of hiking, it became evident that a group of Chinese tourists were hiking the trail under the watchful eye of several tour guides. We can't imagine why this trail was selected (aside for it's incredible beauty), several ladies really struggled to finish.

We hiked the trail in about 2 hours with a 15 minute break. When we arrived at the top, we were greeted by 50 Chinese visitors sitting in the grass with their lunch boxes and chopsticks. The group cheered and applauded each member of their contingent as he or she completed the climb. John commented that the scene reminded him of our Inca Trail hike last summer where similar cheering occurred as hikers summited Dead Woman's Pass (without chopsticks and boxed lunches of course).

The grass looked like a great place for us to enjoy our peanut butter sandwiches and apple so we spread out just to the left of the Chinese. We thoroughly enjoyed watching as exhausted hikers that we had passed moments ago arrived on top with big smiles and excitement. But while the visitors would get in a vehicle for the drive to Clingman's Dome, we had to put on our day packs and hike back to the Chimney Tops parking lot.


The mud bottom of this side creek appeared to have a high content of iron, more so than any of the other side creeks we passed. The color brought to mind the Ochre Beds around the Paint Pots trailhead from 2004 late summer trip to the Rockwall in the Canadian Rockies.

High above the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River

Photo from a bridge across the West Prong. Lush and beautiful vegetation!

A waterfall tumbling over boulders on the West Prong.

Wildflowers along the trail.

Close-up

If you are dazzled by the pictures and think you may have missed something by not visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park this weekend, think again. Traffic was bumper to bumper and parked cars lined both sides of the road at almost every trailhead. Even worse was our foray into Gatlinburg to enjoy a tureen of hot vegetable soup and "skillet" of cornbread at our favorite restaurant, The Brass Lantern. Roaming the streets of Gatlinburg were all of the people that believe that a trip to the Smokies stops in Gatlinburg. But that is a whole other story.

Tonight, John took me to the Melting Pot to celebrate my birthday :-). We feasted on swiss cheese fondue, mushroom salad, boullion fondue with meat, shrimp and veggies AND chocolate fondue. I have a lot of jogging penitence to do to rectify this sumptuous meal and it was worth every step I have to take!

The yin and yang of dessert fondue, dark chocolate and white chocolate, soon to be combined for an incredible delight.

The tray of treats for dipping in the chocolate included strawberries, bananas, pineapple, graham cracker dipped marshmellows, oreo crumb dipped marshmellows, pound cake, brownies and right in the center of the tray...cheese cake. Yep, we ate it all!

Today the sisters, Daddy, John and Mike took Mother to "Up the Creek" restaurant to celebrate her 81st birthday. It can't have been more than 10 years ago on my "cough, cough, 4+*2)(3&8 birthday when Mother looked at me and said "Honey, I don't feel old enough to have a daughter your age." Back at you Mother!! Happy Birthday!

With our adventure on Vancouver Island's West Coast Trail only a few months away, we picked the perfect day for a short practice hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park...high humidity, rain and clouds!

Our initial plan was to hike a 10+-mile loop but we got a late start and spent about 20 minutes in the car at the trailhead, trying to talk ourselves out of going home to a nice, dry environment. It poured!! Finally the rain slacked off and we donned our rain jackets and daypacks and hit the trail....a very muddy trail. We hiked Rabbit Creek Trail from Abrams Ranger Station to the Hannah Mountain Trail junction, about 5.4 miles round trip.

Clouds hung low at the beginning of the hike and water from the rain shower puddled on the trail.

I am actually having more fun that I appear but someone's hair is looking a bit shaggy...love that East Tennessee humidity!

John surveying the devastation from the pine beetle and the winter wind. A crew of 2 was working diligently on trail maintenance. For the most part, the trail was in great shape and we were very impressed.

Mountain laurel in bloom!

We have been eagerly anticipating the arrival "Monster-in-Law" after weeks of watching movie teasers on TV. In preparation for attending opening night, both of us hit the internet to read websites full of reviews. Our afternoon phone chat revealed that neither of us could find much positive about the film. Nevertheless, we put on brave movie faces in hopes of a few good laughs.

And laugh we did. Michael Vartan and Jennifer Lopez are mere props for Jane Fonda and Wanda Sykes to showcase their comedy talent. We laughed over and over at the silly slapstick comedy. And our advice to Jennifer Lopez...give up any attempts at acting ever again!

While this film is a long, long way from Academy material, we are glad we didn't pass.

Cero Cinco-Cero Cinco-Cero Cinco

Tonight John and I joined the masses celebrating the 1862 Battle of Puebla, better known as Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican defeat over the French in Puebla.

W-h-a-a-a-a-t??? Americanized, this holiday is a celebration of Mexican food, booze, music and more food! Our evening plans called for joining the city's Cinco de Mayo celebration on Market Square Mall. When rain kicked in, 30 minutes before showtime, city officials became nervous and canceled the outside celebration.

On to plan B. We opted for a 45 minute wait at El Charro for a mediocre meal without a hint of Mariachi music. Hmmmm, what kind of Mexican celebration is this?? Oh well, Happy Cinco de Mayo to all!