Smokey Mountain National Park, and Back to Florida

Gosh, I now see it has almost six weeks since I have posted a note. We have done so much, that either we have been to busy to post, or there was so much to tell, that It seemed too much to write.

Well, anyway, at our last posting, we were at an Escapee's RV park a little east of Knoxville, TN, and a bout an hour east of Smokey Mountain National Park. shortly after our last posting, we decided to move to the west side of the park, over in North Carolina. We ended up in a pleasant RV park, about five miles outside of Cherokee. We spent about three weeks there, hiking and driving about enjoying the Spring flowers. You can see a new picture of us on the right-hand side of the this blog, taken at Clingman's Dome, the highest peak in the Park, and I think the third highest peak in the Appalachian Mountains.

We really enjoyed the Spring flowers. it has been several years since we have experienced spring in the East, where flowers are abundant in the spring. what made it especially nice was the fact that by traveling higher, we could see flowers just coming out, while at lower altitudes, we could watch as new waves of flowers came into bloom. Unfortunately we did not stay long enough to see the mountain laurel or the rhododendrons come into bloom. that will happen in early June, we are told.

We saw a few Pink Lady's Slippers. Mostly these were seen on top of a high hill about two miles away from the road, on a hike. we very much wanted to see Yellow lady's slippers. Neither of us had ever seen them. We asked various rangers at several visitor's Centers and got directions for all sort of out of the way places, but alas no yellow lady;s Slipper. Then on the last day we revisited a site, where we were told yellow lady's slippers could be found in abundance. We walked in the woods, and could not find them, then i saw some people taking pictures on a bank on the side of the road --- and there they were --- lot of Yellow lady's slippers on a bank, perhaps fifteen feet of the side of the road! Yellow Lady's Slippers are smaller than the pink variety and seem to grow in bunches, with lots of leaves, so that three to ten flowers may be found in a group. The pictures, above, are of the Yellow Lady's Slippers.

We saw lots of flowers and have lots of pictures. Of particular interest was the variety of trillium we saw. We saw Painted Trillium, White Trillium, Catesby's Trillium (a large white trillium), Red Trillium, and Yellow Trillium.

After enjoying Spring in the mountains, we started working our way south. (i have a doctor's appointment at Mayo Clinic on June 2.) We stopped to visit our niece robin for an evening at Fort mill, SC, which is just a suburb of Charlotte, NC. We have spent the last week back at Lake Worth, FL. it is pretty warm here, now -- temperature in the high 80's during the day and in the 60's at night. Madeline has spent most of her time being a grandma, which is a full-time job for her.