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I never get tired of the view we have from Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I never get tired of trying to get a panorama which at least approximates the beauty we enjoy. I got the photos that made up this panorama on a morning in June, 2023. Many of the mountain tops were lost in a sea of fog.
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Betsy was treated like a queen on Mother’s Day this year.
Her sons Mark (left) and Bert (right) along with Robin, Mark’s significant other, treated us to an adventure along Citiico Creek in the Cherokee National Forest. They provided a delicious picnic lunch, and found a perfect picnic spot along the bank of the creek.
Good food, great company, and a couple of hammocks made for an ideal day. Since Mark has a jeep we were able to go back into the “boonies” and to have the place pretty much to ourselves. It would be an understatement to say that we had a wonderful time.
Of course, when Betsy gets together with her sons, just about anything can happen — and it usually does.
But the creek was absolutely beautiful.
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My Beautiful Bride and I love the Smoky Mountains, although we don’t like the busy times (or places) when there are so many tourists around. So we go to the park in the winter or visit some of the places that aren’t on everyone’s list of things to see.
I got this picture of the Middle Prong of Little River on a January visit to the park a few years ago. That’s Lower Spruce Flat Falls coming down the mountain on the other side of the river.
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Late autumn can be a great time to go searching for waterfalls — the weather is usually mild and there are fewer people on the roads and trails than is the case during spring and summer.
Several years ago we explored the Unaka Mountain area near Erwin, Tennessee, on Thanksgiving weekend. Being on the mountain was certainly much more enjoyable than facing Black Friday crowds at the stores and malls. We drove along some Forest Service roads and did some hiking. This pretty little waterfall is one of the sights we enjoyed.
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One of the nice things about living in eastern Tennessee is that autumn in the mountains can be spectacular. There’s no guarantee of course — Mother Nature is going to do what she wants when she wants to do it. There have been years when the autumn colors are muted and quite frankly, drab. But there are other years during which the colors on the mountains take your breath away.
My Beautiful Bride and I try to go on a ‘leaf-hunting’ trip every year. We usually make a loop — going through the Smokies over Newfound Gap, and coming the other way over the Cherohala Parkway.
The picture above was taken along the Cherohala Parkway connecting North Carolina and Tennessee several years ago. We hope we are as fortunate this year.
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I imagine that most ‘normal’ people use a vacation as an opportunity to sleep in and take things easy. Fortunately (or unfortunately) My Beautiful Bride and I are not ‘normal’. We often get up earlier than we normally would just to enjoy the sunrise.
That was certainly the case when we visited the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina in August. We couldn’t see the sun from the balcony of our room, but the sky was still beautiful at sunrise. The picture above was taken the first morning we were there.
The fog in the valleys looked like a blanket spread around the mountains below us.
Looking to the west also gave us a peaceful, serene view of the world from the mountains.
The sunrise on our last morning at Pisgah Inn gave us a lot of incentive to come back.
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Betsy and I traveled to the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway of North Carolina in October to enjoy the autumn colors. We found colorful trees, although there was not as much as we had hoped there would be. Mother Nature, however, more than made up for any lack of color on the trees by providing gorgeous color in the morning skies.
We got up at dawn each day to enjoy the show. The morning started with a single star shining down as the horizon turned a brilliant orange and red.
As the light increased we could see fog in the valleys below and mountain tops in the distance peeking through the fog.
The eastern sky slowly filled with yellow, orange, and gold colors, silhouetting some trees along the ridge line.
Yes, we definitely found some gorgeous colors in the mountains of North Carolina!
In November, 2012, Betsy and I spent a couple of days in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. One of the places we visited was Grandfather Mountain, not too far from Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
The day we visited Grandfather Mountain was beautiful, but cold. The cold didn’t bother us too much as we started up the mountain, stopping at the Sphinx, Split Rock and the Wildlife Habitat on the way. But by the time we reached the Mile High Swinging Bridge at the top, the wind was really blowing and it was cold, COLD, COLD! The weather had been mlld previously, so we weren’t prepared for the cold.
We made it across the bridge nevertheless, although for some reason there weren’t a lot of people around. After thawing out in the Visitor Center at the top, we headed back down the mountain for some warmer temperatures.
This slide show contains images taken that day during our visit to Grandfather Mountain. We’ve been back since, but the weather was milder at that time.
If you would like to see these and other images taken during our visit to Grandfather Mountain, along with a caption for each image, click HERE.
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In July, 2009, Betsy and I went to Mountain Air, near Burnsville, North Carolina, to visit my son Robert and his family. Robert and Melissa were staying at a condo owned by Melissa’s parents, and they invited us to visit them there.
Mountain Air is a development built around a country club and get’s its name from the mountaintop airstrip that allows people to fly in to visit. Robert and Mel — as well as Betsy and I — didn’t fly in, but got there by car.
There are awesome views from many places in Mountain Air, as well as some beautiful homes. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour given by Robert and Mel — as well as Zack and Sean.
The collage above shows views of the sky we enjoyed on our first evening in Mountain Air. The picture on the left in the second row shows a view of the mountains on the morning of our second day. The picture in the middle shows me with Robert. The picture on the bottom right shows our hosts, Melissa, Robert, Zack and Sean.
To see larger versions of these pictures and others, click HERE.
The mountains of western North Carolina as seen from an overlook on Grandfather Mountain. November 8, 2011.
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This is my post for the Our World meme. This meme is a second generation of My World Tuesday created by Klaus Peter and is hosted by five wonderful ladies. To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.
Since Betsy and I live in Tennessee, we’re naturally fond of the Smokies. We visit the Smoky Mountains whenever we can.
But the mountains of western North Carolina are pretty neat as well. I lived in Black Mountain, North Carolina, for thirteen years and enjoyed exploring the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The highest peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina is Grandfather Mountains. (Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the state is in the Black Mountains.) Betsy and I visited Grandfather Mountain in November, and I was able to capture this panorama view of the surrounding mountains from one of the overlooks.
Senior Moments 