Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about a majestic animal that walked all the way from China to Tennessee. About 120,000 years ago (give or take a few thousand years) the ice age caused the sea level to drop about 300 feet exposing a “land bridge” from Siberia to Alaska (At that time Sarah Palin would have been able to see   Read More ...

Fire managers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park plan to conduct a series of prescribed burns of fields in Cades Cove on Tuesday through Friday, November 1st through 4th if weather conditions permit.  Park managers plan to burn several tracts totaling about 550 acres. The fields selected are being burned as part of a strategy to cost-effectively prevent the open fields from being reclaimed by forest.   The Park contracts to mow about 950 acres   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about the only two personal treasures I chose to save when our mountain caught on fire a few days ago. It was a large fire that totally destroyed two cabins and made both TV and newspaper news. Our roller coaster ride of emotion began as my wife and I were returning home from a birthday   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about the best and worse places to wait. I have rated some popular waiting areas using my five star system, but have wisely excluded any waiting circumstances involving my wife, Kat. I’ll begin with the lowest rated waiting area of them all, the driver’s license bureau. My driver’s license expired and I was forced to   Read More ...

Our secret is out folks, the travel industry has voted the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as one of the top family destinations for 2012. Of course we all know how fabulously lucky we are to live here and enjoy the beauty of the National Park any time we get the notion. It seems that the splendor that we all know and love has been widely discovered and now celebrated   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about the 270 million year old red mud that was caked on my hiking boots. Even though I am a lucky man to live in the awesome Smoky Mountains I deliberately left this place and found the ancient mud about 1,858 miles from my cabin. I figured if 10 million people save up money each   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about how Gatlinburg sells more plastic bear ponchos than any other place on planet earth and is #2 in marrying people only behind those fake Elvis dudes in Las Vegas. The truly amazing thing, though, is that the plastic poncho sales and the record number of honeymooners are both direct results of our annual rainfall.   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about three young families and a guy floating down Little River on an inflatable bed. On one of those recent sweltering days filled with a wet heat Kat and I spent the entire afternoon laid out in our gravity lounge chairs down at the Townsend “Y.” (For those unfamiliar with this mountain swimming hole and   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about how life can be measured by the four stages of lawn care. Friends who aren’t familiar with my distant past might sorely question my expertise on this topic. After all, it is true that in the last 8 years I have spent no more than a total of three hours working in my “yard.”   Read More ...

Well, this past week I was looking down into the holler toward Webb’s Creek thinking about my most recent television inspired purchase; the famous upside-down tomato plant grower. You may have seen them on TV loaded with as much as an alleged 30 pounds of beautiful red-ripe tomatoes growing upside down from a tasteful hanging planter. I imagined myself happily picking a couple of tomatoes and within seconds offering them   Read More ...