This time of year, beauty is in mountains

I can see that I am not the only person in America looking for a "mountain fix" this summer. Some people though, have the good luck of being within driving distance for a day trip.

This time of year, beauty is in mountains - by Linda Durrett
Carolina rhododendron peaks in June, among other spectacular sights

"Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days; "Sometimes it feels like "This world's gone crazy "Grandpa, take me back to yesterday "When the line between right and wrong Didn't seem so hazy."

So goes a wistful song sung by Wynonna Judd yearning for the sweet times lingering only in a country memory.

My Grandpa Ralph could have been the inspiration for this song. Missing him and feeling an urge to get my "mountain fix," I headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville recently. My son and my grandson joined me. It was a journey that made new memories and conjured up long-lost ones.

One of the first places Linda speaks of is Craggy Gardens between Asheville and Mt. Mitchell on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Each of my trips through the "Gardens" have missed the peak bloom. Either we were to early or too late, maybe one day we will hit the spot just at the right time for the bloom. The one thing that always seems the same though is the fireplace in the visitors center almost always has a fire burning. So stop a while and enjoy the view before you head on down the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Source: Charlotte Observer | 06/03/2007 | This time of year, beauty is in mountains

I always enjoy the trip up to the top of Mt. Mitchell. The winds and the cooler temperatures make the coffee from the snack bar a real treat. For some reason we never dress for the summit. As we leave Asheville each year heading north we are always dressed for the heat of the valley.

This shot was taken from the top of Mt. Mitchell in early June of 2004...It has always been one of my favorite shots showing the rolling mountains into the haze. If the image looks familiar it's because I used a portion of it as my header for a long while and it now resides at the bottom of the page.

I see from the Park's website that the summit is closed this summer for construction of a new observation tower. If you plan on making a trip in tht direction, check out the website for up to date construction info.

A word of warning...Since I wont be getting into the mountains this summer, I'll be pulling out my old photos and doing a virtual visit. I hope some of you will tag along.

See ya down the Parkway...

It's Sunday Morning - June 10, 20 O'Seven

I hope Charles Osgood doesn't get upset with me for borrowing his date format. I have liked the way it sounds ever since he started using in, I think it was Twenty O'One...Sorry for the sparsity of posts. I have been playing with WordPress for a few days now, first on WordPress.Com and then with setting up a hosted site.

Just as a test blog I set up Coffee Muses on WordPress.Com with a play on the way so many of my posts here are titled. I liked the way the interface worked and the program seemed quite robust so I was posting mirror posts from North Carolina Mountain Dreams to try out WP. In the process I got to thinking about all of the posts I was doing at NCMD that had absolutely nothing to do with the NC mountains and everything to do with world news and Texas in general. It kinda made me think this might be a good time to rethink my blogs directions. I already had a hosting contract with GoDaddy from when I bought the name for NCMD, so I started thinking about setting up a WP blog on the hosted account. Which led me to running a search on the coffeemuses.com domain name. Since nobody was setting on it I decided to buy it and setup shop under that name for my daily "Coffee Muses" and go back to posting just "Mountain Dreams" at NCMD.

Needless to say, Saturday was taken up with installs and tweaks and more tweaks and edits till my wife was wondering what the hell I was doing here. She doesn't understand the hold computers have on some people, especially me even though I have been buying and working and playing on them since the early 80's. As a mater of fact, her biggest threat around here is to pull the plug on the internet 'cause she doesn't see any benefit from using it. Anywho, I think I have the new site up and going well enough to start using it. I will be rolling over to it for my morning posts this next week. I'll probably mirror both sites for a week or so till my brain can handle the new work process. NC Mountain Dreams will continue to be used, just more focused, and I'll try to get in the habit of posting here (there) in the evenings. So if you have stuck with me this far, hang around through the transition, I hope to make it better...

On another note, my health is going to be intruding on my life more in the short term...Last week I had a lesion cut out and biopsied off my vocal cords. Turned out it was cancerous...It looks like we caught it early ( just not early enough for the person in my life that kept telling me for the past few months to go to the Dr.). I will be starting radiation treatments this coming week. Every weekday for six or seven weeks I'll get to trek across town and put on a (looks kinda like a hockey) mask while they strap me down and zap my throat with atomic rays...The SciFi fan in me just had to say that...At some point there may come some days where I wont feel like putting my thoughts out here, and when I end up on leave, I may be posting a lot, so there could be days you want to tell me to shut up...Feel free. Everyone is very optimistic at this time that this will come out well, so I'm just going to continue to muddle through my life in the same fashion I have been and pray for the best...

Needless to say, our two weeks in the mountains above Valle Crucis just got canceled. I will miss the summer trek to the high altitudes and the cool nights. If you are looking for a great place to stay, we just released our cabin reservation. Go talk to the folks at Valle Crucis Log Cabin Rentals, they have been taking good care of us each year and I'm gonna miss 'em. If everything works out well this summer...We plan on trying to get out that way this fall. Neither Sherry nor I have ever really seen fall color. You just don't get that down here in SE Texas...

Later all.