We'd pitched our tent close to the creek and the rushing of the water over the little rapids just downstream was a soothing sound that made for peace-filled sleep. Just the night before we'd been sleeping in a dorm with a couple of dozen bunk beds occupied by others who'd come to the Appalachian Mountains to work. A week repairing houses and painting barns in the deep humidity of Kentucky, living in a community of friendly strangers had been great but we were eager to get on with our vacation and had headed to the nearby Smoky Mountains.

The contrast was surreal. The calm, quiet and solitude were more needed than we had realized. The first morning we woke to rain. Well, every morning we woke to rain. We'd planned to do a lot of hiking but with the threat of rain looming

and the incredible humidity, only managed two good hikes. Vince was so sweaty after he looked as if he'd been through a rain shower! One cloudy morning we were driving around when we came across a path to Lookout Tower. We walked up the path and up the tower to see the view and all we could see were clouds below us... but above was blue sky!

The next day, cloudy again! We took the same path up to the tower and discovered a much clearer view of our surroundings and it was beautiful! We decided it wasn't going to rain any more and trotted back down to do some hiking.

That was the day we took our long hike. The trail to Abrams Falls was closed due to "bear activity" so we missed out on that but we found another that led us up to the heights and down in the valleys. We were so deep in the woods that at one point it was almost spooky. We never saw a sign of another person all day! If felt good to be so free and wild. There were interesting things of nature all around us.

We love camp cooking and we and some wonderful meals, some of which we ate under a lean-to as we watched the rain speckle the creek. We tried out a couple of new recipe ideas I'd found on the internet and they definitely earned their way onto our camp menu in the future. On the way down the highway we had stopped at a flea market where we ended up purchasing quite a bit of local produce.

We did end up leaving a couple of days early. We saw some great views, met many nice and friendly people and discovered much to love about the region. The rain, oppressive heat and humidity finally got to us though and we were ready to head home (to much of the same, more rain, heat and humidity).

Life is good.