Posts Tagged ‘Tennessee’

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Lake Glastowbury

October 18, 2010

Lake Glastowbury, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. October 14, 2010.

Last Thursday Betsy and I drove to the Foothills Parkway on the edge of the Smokies looking for autumn color.  But we found some pretty autumn color even before leaving the Glade.

We decided to take the back way from home to avoid some of the traffic and crossed the dam forming Lake Glastowbury, which is about two miles from our house.

Lake Glastowbury is one of eleven man-made lakes in Fairfield Glade.  While Glastowbury is not the largest, it is a pretty lake.  Most of the homes along the lake are on wooded lots, so it’s easy to imagine being out in the country.

The view as we crossed the dam was so pretty that we took advantage of a pullout and stopped to get some pictures.

Autumn colors on Lake Glastowbury, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. October 14, 2010.

It’s really nice to have such wonderful autumn color in our ‘hometown’.

 

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Posted in Autumn | 14 Comments »

Skywatch Friday: Autumn Sky, Autumn Color

October 15, 2010

This is my post for the My World meme.  It is hosted by Klaus, Ivar, Sandy, Wren, and Fishing Guy.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

Although we had some clouds and a few drops of rain on Tuesday night and Wednesday, most of the week has given us more brilliant blue skies.  We are also getting some autumn color, so I thought I would share a couple of sky views from our yard with some trees showing their colors.

 

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Yesterday Betsy and I drove along the Foothills Parkway between Knoxville and  the Smokies.  It was a beautiful, clear day, and we took many pictures, as you can imagine.  We’ll be sharing some of those with you in the days ahead.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 25 Comments »

My World: Deer at Noon

October 12, 2010

This is my post for the My World meme.  It is hosted by Klaus, Ivar, Sandy, Wren, and Fishing Guy.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

We often see deer on the golf course behind our house in the late afternoon, but on Sunday we saw a mother and three fawns out at noon, which is very unusual.
Both Betsy and I went out to the deck to take some pictures.  Mama Deer kept an eye on us, as you can see from the picture above.

The two largest fawns were enjoying the grass not too far away.


The smallest fawn stayed close to Mama.  All we could see of it here was its legs and ears.


All three fawns decided they needed some liquid refreshment after their grass lunch.  Mama doesn’t look too thrilled at the prospect.


I got a final family portrait before all of the deer disappeared between two houses further up the course.

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Posted in My World | 23 Comments »

Skywatch Friday: Autumn Skies

October 8, 2010

This is my post for Skywatch Friday, a meme for sharing views of the sky from all over the world.  To see more, or to join and share your own photos of the sky, click HERE.

Tuesday, while getting the pictures I used in yesterday’s post, I also experimented with using manual settings on the camera to get pictures of the white clouds in our beautiful blue sky.

We need rain, so I would have been delighted to see some dark rain clouds up there in the sky.  But since we had a bright beautiful day, I was happy with the way these pictures turned out.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 22 Comments »

Watery Wednesday #108: Lake Canterbury

October 6, 2010

Lake Canterbury, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. October 18, 2009.

This is my post for Watery Wednesday.  To see more of our beautiful watery world, or to join and post your own pictures to share, click HERE.

Fairfield Glade has even more lakes (all man-made) than golf courses.  We’re just starting to get touches of autumn color this year.  This picture of Lake Canterbury was taken last year.

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Posted in Watery Wednesday | 18 Comments »

My World: Hints of Autumn

September 21, 2010

Berries on our dogwood tree, Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. September 15, 2010.

This is my post for the My World meme.  It is hosted by Klaus, Ivar, Sandy, Wren, and Fishing Guy.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

This has been an exceptionally hot summer here on the Plateau.  The record number of summer days with temperatures over 90° is 78, and we stand at 77 with two more days of summer left and highs around 90 predicted for both days.

But there is hope.  The dogwood tree in our front yard is now sporting berries, a sure sign the autumn is on the way.  The berries are a bright red, and although the leaves are trying to turn, there is now only a hint of color.

Leaves starting to show some color. September 20, 2010.

But hopefully they will turn and give us more color.  And hopefully we will also get some cooler weather in our part of the world.

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Posted in My World | 19 Comments »

Skywatch Friday: Blue Skies Over the Plateau

September 17, 2010

Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. September 12, 2010.

This is my post for Skywatch Friday, a meme for sharing views of the sky from all over the world.  To see more, or to join and share your own photos of the sky, click HERE.

This past Sunday was absolutely beautiful here on the Plateau.  The temperatures were fairly cool, we had gotten some rain on Saturday, and the sky was a gorgeous blue.

When I lived in North Carolina we said this color of sky was Carolina Blue, but I’m not sure if I should use that description here in Tennessee.  On the other hand orange is the color of the University of Tennessee, so perhaps there wouldn’t be a problem.

Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. September 12, 2010.

Every once in a while a small cloud will sail across Sunday’s blue sky.

Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. September 12, 2001.

But most of the time we just enjoyed that brilliant blue above the trees.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 22 Comments »

My World: Rich Mountain Road

September 14, 2010

The sign at Rich Mountain Road in Cades Cove, Grreat Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. September 9, 2010.

This is my post for the My World meme.  It is hosted by Klaus, Ivar, Sandy, Wren, and Fishing Guy.  To learn more about our world or to join and share your part of the world, click HERE.

As I mentioned yesterday, last week Betsy and I went to the Smokies to drive the Rich Mountain Road.  We enjoy exploring new parts of the Smokies, and this seemed like a great time to go.  The entrance to Rich Mountain Road is in Cades Cove, and we’re always happy to find an excuse to visit that pretty place.

Rich Mountain Road, Smoky Mountains. September 9, 2010.

The road is gravel and closed during the winter, but we had no trouble getting through, other than having to dodge some pot holes.  And although there were no particularly steep grades, we did have quite a few switchbacks, as you can see from the picture above.

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. September 9, 2010.

One reason for taking this road is that we were told that there were some nice overlooks from which Cades Cove could be seen.  We found one at roadside and stopped to get some pictures.  If you look carefully in the lower left of the picture above, you can almost make out the Methodist Church in Cades Cove, which Betsy blogged about yesterday.

We saw several trail heads along the road, so we’ll get some trail maps before we go back.  Perhaps we’ll find another overlook along one of the trails.  We’ll definitely go back to Rich Mountain Road.

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Posted in My World | 18 Comments »

Our Smokies Adventure

September 13, 2010

The track of our trip to the Smokies. September 9, 2010.

I’ve mentioned our GPS unit several times and have talked about how much we like it.  This past Thursday we got a lesson in how much we rely on it.

Our GPS got recalled by Garmin, and we sent it in to be repaired a couple of weeks ago.  So when we went to the Smokies on Thursday we didn’t have it.  We were going to drive Rich Mountain Road, a road we had never taken before.  But we knew it was a primitive, one-way road out of Cades Cove, a place we’ve visited several times.  The sign at the entrance to the road said it went to Townsend, a place we’ve been to many times, so off we went.  I did have my geotagger with us, but that only showed (after the fact) where we had been, not where we were going.

We had no problems in the park.  After leaving the park the road became paved and two-way.  When we came to a four-way stop, we knew we were back to civilization.

That’s when the fun began.  We came to a ‘T’ intersection with no signs.  We figured we were west of Townsend, so we turned right.  A little later we came to a ‘Y’.  The right branch looked like the main road, so we took it.  We drove along enjoying the scenery — and eventually we arrived back at the four-way stop.

Trying to find our way home. September 9, 2010.

We tried again.  This time we took the left branch at the ‘Y’.  That led to more beautiful scenery — and a dead-end!  We turned around and followed the road in the other direction.  Eventually it led to the highway that got us on our way back home.

After all of this ‘fun’, we were delighted to get home and find a package on our doorstep.  Inside the package was our GPS!  We wasted no time getting it put back into our car.

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Posted in Travels | 19 Comments »

Skywatch Friday: A Hint of Rain

September 10, 2010

The skies above Rich Mountain, Townsend, Tennessee. September 9, 2010.

This is my post for Skywatch Friday, a meme for sharing views of the sky from all over the world.  To see more, or to join and share your own photos of the sky, click HERE.

The skies in this picture may not look pretty to you, but they look absolutely beautiful to us.

If you’ve followed my posts for any length of time you know that we’ve had a very dry summer here in eastern Tennessee.  We got some rain in the Glade on Wednesday, which was very welcome.  The weather service says that more rain is coming on Friday and Saturday, and we’re looking forward to it.  For once we’re hoping the forecast for rain on the weekend is correct.

The picture above was taken near Townsend, Tennessee near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Betsy and I had taken a drive to the Smokies to visit some areas we hadn’t visited before.  I’ll tell you more about our trip next week.

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Posted in SkyWatch Friday | 23 Comments »

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