Hanging With the Ladies

No Monday Mural today, too much to talk about down from Tennessee still.

I spent some time with the ladies I shared a house with, I swear.

French Toast made by Pam

I kept trying to get them out in the woods with me, but they had their own ideas.  I did talk them into taking a drive through Cades Cove.  We took separate cars though because I wanted to do some hiking in Tremont.  

Little River Road

We went as far as the Townsend "Y" together to see some wildflowers on the Chestnut Top Trail, but first I had to veer off onto the side of the road to capture the vivid Columbine blooming on the rock face along Little River Road.

Then it was on to the Chestnut Top Trail for a wildflower stroll with the ladies.

I had an opportunity to put all my new-found knowledge to good use and tell them the names of just about everything they pointed out.

Wild Stonecrop

A butterfly enjoys the Beaked Violet

I saw some Fire Pink when we were in Kentucky, but I was happy to see a little red here in the Smokies too.  The "pink" refers to the shape of their petals and not their color.  The tips of the petals are notched or "pinked" (think of a pair of pinking shears).  The deep tubular corolla evolved to use flying insects and hummingbirds as its primary pollinators, giving it a better chance of the pollen being passed on than with crawling insects.

By now I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, for goodness sakes, how many wildflowers must Pam show us?  Well, there are 1500 kinds of flowering plants in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but I promise not to show you that many.

One-Flowered CancerRoot - the only one I've seen

After they were done looking at the flowers they stopped along the Little River to pose for some photos before they left for their drive through Cades Cove.

On Saturday even more Newfie cousins showed up.

Sunday breakfast 

That's three Newfie cousins with three daughters and an extra non-Newfie friend thrown in for variety.  When they got started on the "remember when" tales with the convoluted family tree that goes along I felt kind of sorry for poor Deena!  

3 cousins and 3 daughters

She took it in stride though and by the end of 24 hours I hope she felt like family.  You know them Newfies, nothing but foolishness.

Goofy Newfies

While the cousins played catch-up and drank tea I dragged Deena and Darlene to Porter's Creek to hunt for Lady Slipper.  

When we came back we had some more visitors to our backyard after supper.

If they were hoping to get some scraps they were in for a disappointment.  We made sure to latch the bear-proof lock on the garbage storage outside.

Mom and cub just grazed underneath our deck for awhile and we all hung around watching them.

It was a short time we had together, but full of laughter and friendships both old and new.  Hopefully we'll all meet up again soon...the bears can stay in the Smokies where they belong though.

Today we drove as far as Indianapolis, tomorrow it's all the way home but I don't think it will be long before I'm back on the trails of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  I even picked out an RV park in Townsend for us to stay at next time so I can explore the other end of the park more!