Road Trip to Memphis

Day three

Waynesville & Great Smoky Mountains

North Carolina & Tennessee

One of my best friends at school, Jack Mershon at his home in Waynesville. We weathered several years at a small Iowa college together. A few years ago it had been 30 years since we had seen each other. We've gotten it down to three years intervals, now we're going to try three months.

Ophelia presses ground coffee for an expresso at the Lavender Bleu Wellness and Spa in Waynesville. The shop offers an excellent coffee bar as well as a variety of holistic approaches to wellness and health.

There is a simple grace about Ophelia. She is originally from Australia. Known for her abilities as a healer and medicine woman, she once hosted a television show which aired in Charlottesville and Northern Virginia, the Washington, D.C., area and Santa Fe, N.M.

Smoky Mountains

A roadside plant yet to be identified.

A new blaze broke out from an earlier forest fire near the Big Cove community near Cherokee, N.C. It has burned over 3,000 acres as of yesterday. It was felt the fire was mostly contained, but this breakout threatens more acreage. There has been no fire in this area in more than 50 years. The accumulation of dry plant material over that time makes this fire particularly menacing. I missed an opportunity to go into the fire areas because I didn't have proper shoes. The ones I have would melt if I stepped on a hot ember.

Forest service officials confer with Long Bow, a Cherokee Native American. He has served as a fire fighter, knows the area and is lining out access trails into the fire.

A bird yet to be identified at high elevation in the mountains. Note the dense lichen on the branches of the tree on which it is perched.

 

One final mountain vista before dropping down on the Cumberland Plateau and EasternTennessee.