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| Fontana Lake is located on the southern border of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One of the prettiest lakes I've ever seen. It's right up there with Dale Hollow Lake. Just one of the many beautiful sights in Western North Carolina. |
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| Fontana Lake Dam |
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| Me and T riding The Dragon on US 129 heading toward Robbinsville, NC. on Aug. 19th. 318 curves and 11 miles of pure fun. Picture courtesy of http://www.us129photos.com |
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| On day three of our trip we had planned on taking the The Great Smoky Mountain Railroad ride through the Nantahala Gorge. The weather wasn't cooperating so we decided to take a road trip and explore the Nantahala National Forest, drive through Cherokee and check out the Nantahala Outdoor Center. You can click on the links to find out more info about the forest, the railroad and outdoor center. |
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| We stayed in Cherokee long enough to check out the Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort. We had never been to a casino before. On the way out of town I took this picture of an Indian statue. Terry said it looked like it was giving a Nazi salute :0) |
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| Next stop was the Nantahala Outdoor Center which was right down the road from where we were staying. They have a kayaking and canoeing school and whitewater rafting trips. |
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| The mist rising from the river was beautiful. It rained off and on while we were there which made taking photos tricky. We were worried about getting our cameras wet. |
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| Terry on the swinging bridge. We took pictures of people white water rafting from the bridge. It was fun watching them go down the river. The water was very cold! |
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| Moi on swinging bridge. I love these things! |
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| You can see a guy through the fog on a paddle board. |
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| Wild flowers on the river bank. |
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| Taking a picture down the Smokey Mountain Railway railroad track. |
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| This is the picture I took. We were both cold and soggy by the time we got back to the yurt. That was remedied by a nice fire in our fire pit. |
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| This picture doesn't do this tree justice! Luckily Terry used to wide angle lens to get the shot. |
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| We had to watch for fallen limbs on the trails. |
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| Perfect round hold in this rock. |
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| I'm pretty sure this is the tree where Tony's ashes will be scattered. |
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| This fern covered boulder was at the end of the trail. |
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| On Tuesday, August 20th, we decided to take a trip up to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. This was one of the highlights of our trip. Not only because we had never been there before, but one of our oldest and dearest friends used to talk about this place all the time. I would like to dedicate these photos to the memory of our friend, Tony Long, who was killed in a semi-truck accident in Texas on Aug. 3rd. His sons will be scattering his ashes in the place that he loved so much. |
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| I'll post more pictures from Joyce Kilmer tomorrow. This place was so gorgeous and serene. It had rained before we got there and while we were there. The trails were muddy, but we enjoyed every minute of our hike. |
