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Another East End Sunset: A Sky On Fire

November 18, 2013 by Leah Leave a Comment

One day a couple months ago, a friend started talking about how breathtaking Tennessee sunsets are. Rob was nearby while this was being said and he said he could practically hear my eyes rolling. I am partial to seaside sunsets and the ones I’ve seen at home on Long Island are my personal favorites. It’s hard to describe the experience unless you’re there. When Rob and I were home in October, the sky decided to give us a sendoff on the last night of our trip. These pictures were taken on Bailie Beach and you can see the jetty in the distance.

None of these pictures have any filters or editing. The sky speaks for itself.

I’ll see you in a week, Long Island!!!

Great Smoky Mountains National Park: The Top Of The World At Clingman’s Dome

November 5, 2013 by Leah Leave a Comment

For our our second day in GSMNP, we decided to do the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail before heading into the main part of the park. It’s a six mile loop just outside of town that you can drive through for lovely views of mountains and rocky streams.

The thing about this motor trail that I didn’t realize is that to see any of the falls you always see in pictures promoting this trail, you have to hike to them. Be not lulled into the phrase “motor trail” or you will be sorely disappointed that it’s just a very narrow paved driveway through the woods. As pretty as the woods were, I thought we’d see more. The speed limit is 10 mph I think, and if you are a New Yorker who gets behind someone who actually drives the 10 mph, you will go mad.

After we ditched the motor trail, we headed straight back into the park for a quick hike to Laurel Falls, as recommended by the nice old man at the visitors center. Let’s be honest, the Laurel Falls trail is not for anyone who enjoys hiking. The entire trail is paved. The people who hike this trail don’t want to hike, they want to throw trash in the woods and let their children careen off the trail, screaming and yelling and throwing Cheetos. Rob actually started picking up bits of trash on the way back, that’s how bad it was. In fact, we sped past one poor sod of a dad pushing a double wide stroller up the damn path. A DOUBLE WIDE!!!! The trail was quite uphill, so I don’t know how he didn’t perish in the act.

When we got to the falls, it was totally crowded. There were signs everywhere warning people to be careful because other humans had died from falling, but people still climbed all over the slippery rocks and we actually watched one guy take a nice tumble on some slippery leaves. The falls themselves were pretty. I mean, nothing to write home about or anything, especially with the yellow “danger” signs everywhere, but pretty nonetheless.

The blatant disrespect people have for nature when they are right smack dab in the middle of it is astounding to me. If you’re coming to this park and really like to hike on a real trail with less traffic, avoid Laurel Falls.

Ok, onto the next gem in the park that we thoroughly enjoyed, Clingman’s Dome. This is the highest point in the park and in Tennessee. If you feel like you could stand to lose a bit of cellulite on the thighs, this is the trail for you.

So you drive to the top of the mountain and think it’s going to be a merry little walk to an observation tower. No. It’s a brutal incline that will have your legs hating you for days. But honestly, it was worth every painful step. The view on the way up is lovely and is worth admiring for minutes at a time every ten feet or so, this way you can catch your breath. When you get to the top of the hill, you still have an icy winding ramp to navigate up to the tower. People were hanging on for dear life. One kind man decided to tell me “that side is slippery” while I was in the middle of sliding my way up. Oh, thank you, I hadn’t noticed.

When you get to the tower, your breath is stolen by the view. 360 degrees of rolling mountains and Fraser firs.

It was like an ocean of mountains. The horizon stretched into infinity and layers upon layers of smoky blue mountains reached to the edges of the earth.

We slid back down the ramp and came upon a sign for the Appalachian Trail. Someday I want to hike this trail…well, a decent part of the trail. I mean, let’s not get crazy. As awesome as it would be to pull a “Bill Bryson” and write a book about it, there really isn’t anyone at this point who can improve upon A Walk In The Woods. Rob and I walked onto the trail a bit. It was very exciting. There is something incredible about the Appalachian Trail that demands respect and inspires awe. The trail stretches 2,180 miles from Georgia to Maine, and to see this small piece of it in the middle of these magnificent mountains was really thrilling. Of course if I am ever going to really have a go at this I need to hit REI for some real shoes and leave the Betsey Johnson boots at home.

We took one last look at the view and began our descent on fumes. The gas light came on just as we were heading down, so we tried to coast a bit.

There was one more stop we wanted to make at the Newfoundland Gap overlook at the state line. At this stop there were plaques explaining how the Smokies got their name. Apparently the vegetation lets off a smoky blue gas into the atmosphere. Over the years, pollution has contributed to the haze one can see over the range, and as nice as a perfectly clear day would be, it was much more mysterious to see the blue peaks in the distance.

We didn’t see a black bear. I was dying to see a bear. Everywhere we went we overheard people talking about seeing bears and showing friends their cell phone pics of the bear that was 6 feet away from them. I can’t complain though. We had such a lovely time in the mountains and it was beyond refreshing to get out of town and feel like we were in another world for a while. Hopefully someday we’ll come back here and explore some more of the trails. After all, there are 800 miles of them.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Getting Out Of Tackytown And Into The Woods

November 4, 2013 by Leah Leave a Comment

Rob’s birthday is coming up and I wanted to make a memory as opposed to struggling to find him a gift he might not use, so I thought it would be fun if we went up to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to go hiking and see some Tennessee fall color. On Friday night we arrived in Gatlinburg. The first time I was here was in my freshman year of college and I remembered it as being the most horrendously tacky place on earth. My memory had erased the worst part of getting to Gatlinburg: going through the armpit of the tourist industry, Pigeon Forge. I think the place is disgusting. It is the antithesis of everything beautiful and true, the worst kind of tourist consumerism. Pigeon Forge is a highway of neon lights advertising psychic readings, every embarrassingly “country” show you can imagine, cowboy boot outlets, mini golf palaces, and as Rob so aptly put it, the place looks like a carnival got stuck there. When we arrived in Gatlinburg, the scene changed a bit.The town grew smaller, the neon lights grew slightly dimmer, and signs for the parkway began to appear, along with the brown and white signs I have grown to love that signal you are in the middle of government protected nature. We took a walk through town at around 11pm just to see what there was and since we were some of the only people out, it seemed rather tame. During the daytime when the tourists emerge, it’s pretty much my personal traveling nightmare. The people who frequent the town of Gatlinburg are not the earthy types you normally find in towns that border national parks. The clientele is more that of a traveler barely energetic enough to make it from one Ripley’s Believe It Or Not attraction to the next fudge shop prior to buying an airbrushed t-shirt.

When you get out of town, the parkway leads you straight into the park, and Rob and I were enamored with the fall color and the pristine woods. All of it seemed even more glorious after leaving the stifling confines of a town that seems an affront to the nature that surrounds it. We stopped at the Sugarlands Visitor Center to get a map, some directions, and a plan for the day. We decided to drive through Cades Cove and hike to Abrams Falls.

I’ve never been to Cades Cove, but a friend said I had to see it and I’m so glad she did. The 50 minute drive to the Cove loop was an adventure in itself. There are lots of pull-offs where you can stop and meander along the rambling river that wends its way next to the road.

The water was rushing in chilly currents through the forest, carrying bits of gold, red, and fiery yellow leaves with it. Green moss blinked out from the tree roots and blanketed the river rocks.

Every bend had me saying, “ooh, that’s pretty” to the point where “pretty” just sounded inane because every part of what we were seeing was simply gorgeous. There were parts of the road where the sunlight lit the trees on fire, showcasing the brilliance of the golden leaves that were so prevalent throughout the hills. As soon as we entered the scenic loop around Cades Cove we found ourselves in a bumper to bumper line of cars that wended its 11 mile way through an outdoor museum of sorts paying homage to the simple pioneer life of the families who lived in this portion of Appalachia.

Some pre-Thanksgiving turkeys having a snack in field. No big deal.

Rustic log cabins dotted the cove, along with simple churches that spoke to a time when church buildings consisted of 4 bare walls and rough hewn wooden pews. The sound systems in today’s churches would have blown the minds of the people who once worshiped here. The simplicity of this way of life, the self-sustaining culture that dwelt here spoke deeply to me as we drove through. This is a simplicity I have never known.

Halfway through the loop, we stopped at the Abrams Falls trail head for a 5 mile waterfall hike. Up and down the rocky trail we walked, through rainbows of fall colors, breathing in the crisp air of the river beside us.

The trail was a moderate one and we enjoyed the entire walk. Once at the falls, we were able to sit and eat some apples, watch a rainbow trout, and listen to the rushing water plummet over the rocks into a deep pool below.

Heading back we threw our backs into the uphill climb and made the entire round trip in exactly 3 hours. Perfect timing! Plenty of time left to check out the Cades Cove visitors center and historic grist mill.

The colors of the trees stood out even deeper as the light started to fade. We crawled along at a snail’s pace out of the cove, passing more cabins, imagining more empty fields swaying with wheat, rye, and cotton. Coming back into Gatlinburg town was a bit of a shock to the system after being surrounded by such pure beauty the entire day, but we already had a plan for the next day that included more waterfalls.

Summer’s Farewell: The Year Of The Yard In Review

September 27, 2013 by Leah Leave a Comment

Autumn is here and the chill in the air is making me melancholy. While fall is nature’s most resplendent display – Mother Earth’s chance to show off – it signals the coming of winter, a cold and barren time in the garden when the bulbs sleep and the animals hunker down for warmth. I have been busy, tearing out spent tomato plants and tired annuals that have raised the white flag and dropped their petals. Fall is crunch time. The evenings descend quickly and the light disappears as I rush around the yard trying to finish digging flower beds and mulch new plants. Last year at this time I was planting a maple tree and two apple trees, which signaled the beginning of what I refer to as “the year of the yard.”

The first year in the house was an exhausting marathon of endless projects to make the place livable to the point where I wouldn’t pull my hair out or spontaneously kill someone. The living room, guest room, and bathroom are finished. 3 rooms!!! There are still several rooms to complete, but in the meantime, my focus turned outdoors to my glorious blank canvas of a yard. The vegetable garden was more than I could have hoped for this year. The yield was ridiculous with baskets of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and zucchini. I still have some watermelon out there and a few forlorn sun sugar tomatoes hanging on, but for this year, the garden is preparing to rest and rejuvenate for next year’s crop.

I don’t plan on growing jalapenos again since I had no idea what to do with them. I will definitely grow the Sweet Slice cucumbers again because that variety was awesome. The tomatoes…I am on the fence. I will grow the Sun Sugar variety again. Not the Cherokee Purple because the tomatoes were often misshapen and weird looking, and the plants were gangly. The San Marzanos were good for sauce, but were a pain to manage. The Giant Belgium were delicious and amazing, so I may try to do that one again. All my tomato plants came down with the blight this year due to the immense amount of rain we received. This is the first occurrence of this in TN since 2009.

I left the ugly dying plants up and continued to get lots of tomatoes, but boy did it look like a mess in there. Might not do string beans next season, but then again I might. The round zucchini were fabulous until the vine borers got to them. They are on the list for next year, along with maybe one or two plants of regular zucchini. The watermelons were so fun, but nothing beats a seedless watermelon from the store. I may use that section for something else next year, like a basil patch, or something fun I find in the seed section. All in all, the veggie garden was a major success and such a joy to work in and harvest from. Several neighbors have walked by and commented on all the hard work the yard is, but for me it’s my passion, the hard work was fun and rewarding beyond what I could have known.

My project for the last three months has been a long flower bed lining the main fence on the side of the yard. This has been a pain to mow and I wanted to plant something pretty. I started with a bunch of butterfly bushes in different colors, most of which were smuggled back from Mattituck on the plane in a ziploc bag. They became huge and beautiful and the butterflies were all over these things! Swallowtails, frittilaries, skippers, sulphurs, and hummingbird moths swarmed these bushes everyday…my heart was so terribly happy!! Then came the clematis plants. They were in the clearance section at Lowes (a black hole I can’t resist) and I bought 7 different colors and planted them along the posts of the fence. Initially I didn’t want anything growing on the fence, but I broke down thinking maybe they would class it up a little, but let’s be honest, there is no plant in this world that can bring class to a chain link fence.

And lastly, dad’s daylilies to fill in the spaces between the butterfly bushes. Daylilies are drought tolerant and keep their foliage up through the fall. They are also incredibly gorgeous when they bloom in large groups. There are about fifty plants that line the fence now, all from dad’s garden, all his original varieties that he’s hybridized. No one else in the world has these plants and it is so special to me to have a piece of home in my flower garden. Digging all of the grass out was a miserable process, but planting the daylilies made it all worth it. I can’t wait to see the show they put on next spring!

I have one flowerbed left that I want to finish before fall ends. I’d like to get some railroad ties and put them around the apple trees to create a rectangular bed. The soil where they are planted is very hard and some of the roots of the trees are showing, so I want to kill the grass, add some topsoil, and put some low growing, sun-loving perennials between the trees.

One of the most exciting little projects was the planting of my fig tree! A friend gave me these twigs in the spring and they just took off and started to become a little tree. As the tree became root bound in its pot, dad helped dig out a useless wad of lilac sticks that refused to bloom. The roots were massively entangled and there was just no hope for the plant anymore. The leaves mildewed in the humidity and it looked shoddy at best. The fig is now happily sprouting new leaves where the lilac dwindled and the old lyriope from the front walk found a home around the base of the little fruit tree.

Not bad. Most of the hardest, more labor intensive work is past me, so next year will be mostly maintenance and moving plants around to get them in exactly the right spot. I wish I had tons of cash to drop at a fancy nursery so I could glam the place up a bit, but hopefully as roots start to establish themselves, the gardens will look less like a patchwork quilt and more like a designed and intentional landscape.

Autumn, I love you, but I will miss summer’s heat and vibrant growth. Now comes the time of soups, stews, and pumpkin pies!!!

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