Elkmont and Alum Creek

Thursday, 29 August and Friday, 30 August 2012
Elkmont and Alum Creek

After spending all day at Dollyworld we drove to Elkmont campground in Great Smokey Mountain National Park. A very beautiful and quiet campground. A creek ran right behind the camper. Very peaceful and great to listen to as we fell asleep.

A side note: Dollywood is ok, but certainly not worth driving out of one’s way to visit. While it is owned by Silver Dollar City in Missouri, Dollywood does not begin to compare to SDC. This being said, we did manage to ride every roller coaster in the park and escaped the scourge of junk food, having only consumed one triple scoop sundae (this of course followed our BIG Tennesse Country Breakfast at Applewood Grill before we entered the park.)

A second side note: As a geek I am fairly adept at working with photographic editing programs like Photoshop, etc. However, as one might expect from a geek, my “creative” side is somewhat lacking. There for, I have been studing lessons in photographic composition by the master photographer Ben Long. As such, dear reader, you will be subjected to some of my photographic experimentation based on Ben’s lessons. Hopefully, over time, I can enhance my photographic creativeness. So, please bare with me and PLEASE provide me with feedback and constructive criticism.

Friday morning, Meriam had me up at the crack of dawn for a 5 mile hike in the Smokies called Alum Creek Trail. While the trail is over 10 miles long, we chose to only do about half of the trek (after all, we are a couple of ole cootes — at least one of us anyway — and have not gotten our hiking legs/lungs into shape yet!)

As you can see from the photographs, this was a gorgeous hike. We hiked along a stream for most of the way. Everything was green and lush. Perhaps the most impressive part of the hike was pointed out to me by Meriam. She noted the thousands of wild Rhotodendrens all over the mountain! We surmise that over 1/2 of all the undergrowth was comprised of Rhotogendrens!

Tonight we camp in Smokemont campground in the Smokies. Tomorrow we begin our 300+ mile drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.