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Quiet Morning!

 

It's a bit cloudy here south of the sun.  Seventy degrees at 7:30 hundred AM and the first cup of Pike Place Roast is beginning to kick in.  It will probably be warmer than I would like at this time of the year because I do miss the sharp breaks of a season change.  If I remember correctly, the end of September happened with an almost instant drop in the temperature, but not so much down here in south Shangra La .

 

 

In the North, the beginning of fall also marked the time of the Hunt and it was fun to watch when they came by or if you heard the horn blowing four fields away. 

 

The midlands of South Carolina don't tend to exhibit a sharp change in rural shrubbery color as do those areas further north.  So I would have to make the three hour drive to Asheville, NC to see the color.  That is a fun trip and offers a great jumping off place for the wilds of Appalachians in that state and Tennessee. 

 

That is the Appalachian Trail...the Trail! In western North Carolina.  Looks pretty tame right?  Bet it isn't after about thirty days of walking.  I once entertained the thought of walking the trail from end to end.  Georgia to Maine.  But I was just turning seventy at the time and somehow my youthful exuberance just didn't bubble up enough to commit to such silliness.  I did a lot of reading on the subject and found that for most of the trail, it was simply gruelling plodding through the woods and not scenic vista upon scenic vista that one would imagine.  So, I'll just drive to the pullovers and snap my photos like all the rest of the tourists.

I'm not sure what the allure of extremes is all about, but the beach and mountains seem to call to me.  I guess it's like Jimmy Buffett being drawn to the Caribbean Islands.  In fact Buffett just went into the computer and "I got a school boy heart" is playing.

  Just something about a natural desire to be thrust into the extremes of mother nature.

It's like does God offer "Do overs"?  I would love to have been a storm chaser in Kansas, a forest ranger in New Hampshire, or fishing guide in the Keys.  All things that probably provide less income than social security.  And that ain't much! 

 

The trail runs through the middle of the Smokies in Tennessee and could you just imagine having to walk the distance along the cut between the mountain ranges from top to bottom of that picture.  Smell like stale uneaten Tacos when you finish.  And that is probably less than ten miles of the over two thousand miles of trail.  Would have been fun thirty years ago.

 

The far left and top of South Carolina does offer some sense of the weather changes, the mountains, and pines close to a tree line of sorts.  This is table Rock!  A place that one can drive to and have only a short walk...And....a view of something other than your right boot plopping down in front of the left.  Repeat as needed! With a seventy pound pack on your back!

 Probably one of the very few best decisions I have ever made in life was to recognize that I really did not want to walk "The" trail.

 

Blind hog finds an acorn category.