April 21
April 22
April 23
April 24
April 25
April 26
I left home a little after 11 am, driving to Knoxville, TN, to meet my friend, Deb, who was flying in from Chicago for the week. I stopped for lunch along the way. I’m glad I allowed some extra time as there is road construction going on in Knoxville - working on I-40 - and traffic heading for the airport was routed north of the city along I-640, reentering I-40 from the west to reach the airport exit. After I got home, there was an article in the paper saying that this stretch of I-40 would be closed down completely effective May 1. I guess I just got caught in the prep work - all the signs were in place for the closure. It will be closed for 14 months while they fix a really out of date section of highway.
Anyway, I arrived at the airport in plenty of time and sat and read for half an hour before her plane arrived. We grabbed her duffle, loaded her stuff into my car, and headed for Townsend, checking in at the Talley Ho Inn, my favorite spot to stay when visiting the Smokies. Along the way, we stopped to fill the gas tank and to get some supplies at the grocery store (sandwich makings, bananas, and snacks).
After getting settled in and configuring our camera bags for shooting, we took off again to introduce Deb to the Smokies.
Our first stop was along Laurel Creek Road at one of the prettier cascades in the area. We spent some time here, shooting some crested dwarf iris in addition to the cascades.
The photo on the left above shows the cascades on Laurel Creek. The right photo has some Crested Dwarf Iris.
We returned to the car to find it surrounded by one of the three (at least) photo tours going on in the Park this week. I singled out one participant and said “If you’ll help me back out of here, I promise not to run over you” (with a smile), which got the desired reaction....
We continued on to Cades Cove, driving the loop and making some stops along the way. The turkeys were out again, but the toms weren’t strutting their stuff like they were last week, when I scouted the area.
We stopped at Sparks Lane for a while. The lane itself was closed for some reason, but that didn’t stop us from walking down to the stream and taking some pictures like the one to the right.
We stopped at the John Oliver Place and walked up to the cabin, taking some pictures around the cabin. The photo on the left above shows the view of Cades Cove through the front porch of the John Oliver cabin. The photo on the right shows the lovely dogwoods that were blooming behind the cabin and the stacked wood fence that marked the edge of the clearing.
We also stopped at the Tipton Place and the Carter Shields Cabin for some more photos. When we stopped at the Carter Shields Cabin, we were told that there were two bears in the woods out behind the cabin, so we hurried over to watch. In all the years I’ve gone to Cades Cove, this was the first time I’d seen any bears. We didn’t take any pictures of them, however, as they were across the stream a ways and neither of us had a telephoto lens long enough to distinguish them from the trees they were in the middle of. We watched them foraging for a while until they finally moved out of range.
After watching the bears for a while, we resumed shooting photographs. The photo to the left shows the Carter Shields cabin surrounded by spring dogwoods.
It was starting to get dark, so we headed back to Townsend where we ate dinner at the Carriage House, right next to the Talley Ho. We were chatting after eating and our waitress asked if we were finished as they were trying to close up before the grocery store closed.... Seems they close at 8:30 and it was now a little after 9.... So, we returned to the Inn and crashed for the night.