I've lived in Nashville for about 18 years now and am amazed that I've never ventured to East Tennessee.
As I headed toward Knoxville, it surprised me that it was only 2 hours away. Heading up into the Smokey Mountains, the view was breathtaking as fall was in full bloom. The photo bug hit me so hard, urging me to stop every few feet and take a picture but knowing I wouldn't get anywhere that way, I settled for soaking it all in and taking all the mental pictures I could.
The beauty of the mountains was overwhelming with every twist in the road. I would go around a bend and see a beautiful, peaceful, green valley surrounded by a warm blanket of the deepest red, orange, yellow and rust colors I've ever seen. Crossing over a hill I could see the shadow of mountains in the distance reaching out, calling me to come to them. I would cross a bridge and on the left see a calm, serene river cascaded by a sheer wall of rock reaching to the sky, surrounding it, leading it along the way.
As I headed into Virginia and the Appalachian Mountains, the country side was spotted with old barns, worn and weather beaten but just screaming to be photographed. I began seeing red barns with tall thin silos with the dome tops. Strangely enough it brought back a memory of my early....early childhood where I had a toy farm house set exactly like what I was seeing. The red barn, the silo, the cows and horses in the fields. A memory I shouldn't have been able to remember but it was there in living color.
Soaking in all the beauty, I turned a bend in the road and there with an ambulance, fire truck and police, was a small red car turned upside down in the ditch. The car, so crushed, no one could have survived. It brought the realization that among all the wonders of the world, the Journey of Live continues beginning and ending. As beauty came, met by tragedy, it reminded me that we should find the joy where ever we can and hold on to it for we never know what's around the bend.
Virginia and West Virginia brought with it so many names of cities that I only thought of when reading the history of the area. Then there were signs of the Shenandoah Valley and Mountains which prompted my singing of "Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Far away beyond the river"......yep a good memory. The highway through the valley stretched for miles, the mountains rising up on both sides solid in the colors of bright yellow, red, orange and rust giving the most incredible rush of emotions. The area brought with it architecture that was so accustomed to the area but so different from any of my travels before. Tall two and three story houses that had been there for years, some still lived in and some abandoned a long time ago. One such house was out in the middle of a field and you could almost hear the sounds of laughter in the house and see the children playing in the fields, long gone but still inhabited my those memories of years gone by.
Heading through West Virginia into Pennsylvania and New York, the pace of the area began increasing mile by mile. Driving down highways of 55 or 65 miles an hour meant no slower than 75 or 80. You could feel the urgency of the drivers, the pace of life changing from the peacefulness of the mountains to the cities ahead where slow, relaxed and peaceful were not in there vocabulary.
And so the Adventure continues......Part 3
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