From Tennessee, April 14, 2008

A White Trillium


Several White Trilliums in a Glen




Bloodroot



Yellow Trilliums

Yellow Violets

Violet Violets

We have had a change of plans. Instead of heading west, we decided to stay in the east for a while longer. We are now up at an Escapee RV park in Heiskell, TN, just a little outside of Knoxville and a little more than an hour’s trip to Smoky Mountain National Park. (We decided to change plans, because of the extra mileage of a trip to Phoenix to the Mayo Clinic for some further medical testing required in June, seemed just too expensive in view of the present–day cost of diesel fuel.)

We made the trip from Florida to Tennessee last week. Our daughter, Diana, was on vacation from her school librarian job, so she was able to come to visit us for a few days. We had great fun -- going to the National Park as well as other local attractions.

It is a beautiful time of year here in Tennessee. The spring flowers are coming out. The redbud trees are at their peak here and the dog woods will are just about to come into full bloom. When Diana was here we went to the Smoky Mountains. It was fun to go up the mountains in the car, and stop to look at the flowers. As we gained altitude, there were fewer and fewer flowers, and when we reached the top at some 6000 feet (just a little higher than Denver, so in western parlance, not so high!), nothing was in bloom, and even the trees had not started to bud.

At the lower elevations we saw:
Redbud trees
Dogwood
Purple, white and yellow violets
Flox
White Trilliums
Yellow trilliums
Bloodroot
Fringed Phacelia
Wood anemones
Wild Geraniums

I had never seen yellow trilliums before. They are shaped somewhat like “Johnny Jump Ups, or Wake Robin that we see on Missouri, but are prettier and occasionally you see a plant with the petals fully extended. The White Trilliums were in abundance, and in places an area over about one hundred feet square would be blanketed with them.

The fringed Phacelia was also new to me. These are white flowers with a six delicate fringed petal, - the plant rising perhaps two to three inches off the forest floor, growing where there is sunshine. They were in abidance on the grassy roadside, but they were also seen in the woods.

On another day we all went to visit Museum of the Appalachia, which is Norris, a small town about ten miles from where we are staying. This is a de4lightful museum with many restored buildings, most transported from what were a small isolated Appalachian Villages. There were, of course, a blacksmith shop, an old school, several old barns and an assortment of log cabins. These villages were relatively isolated, and so were pretty self sufficient. They do seem similar to other reconstructed pioneer villages in Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. There was also a large building with a collection of the various tools and household items used one hundred to two hundred years ago. What seems unique to this area is the importance of music. There were a number of exhibits devoted to music, and an obvious pride that many of the pioneers of country music came from the Appalachian region. In that line, there were two musicians performing – one playing the guitar, the other a fiddle.

Well, there seem lots to do here. We have done just a little exploring of the area – visiting one state park and searching out a place that served authentic Tennessee barbeque.