I was up bright and early today, eager to get started on my adventures.  After a lovely breakfast at the hotel, I headed out toward the Smoky Mountains National Park.  It was only about ten minutes from my hotel, through downtown Cherokee.  I was a bit overwhelmed by the downtown, which -- aside from a gorgeous park with a river running through it -- was full of gimmicky stores trying to sell folks everything from baskets and moccasins to bingo cards - all with a Native American theme -- this being the Cherokee reservation, after all.  I'm not really into all the touristy type shopping, so I did my best to ignore it, looking for what lay behind the glitter.  And lo and behold, my first glimpse was of the Indian affairs office, followed by a quiet but compelling showcase of carved and painted bears stand at least five feet at the shoulder, posed here and there along the main street of the town.  Something to look at closely when I returned from the park. 

Then I was in a sweeping valley surrounded by the Smoky Mountains, with a replica Mountain Farm museum behind a big rail fence (build horse-high, hog-tight, and ull-strong, according to local tradition.)  A lovely visitor center sat among the pine trees and laurel bushes, and I swept into the parking lot and went inside to talk to the kind employees inside.  They quickly directed me to several picturesque spots for photography, and guided me into the bookstore for folklore.  There, the woman who waited on me had a fabulous tale of her own to tell.  While not spooky, it certainly reflected the spirit of the mountains. 

The woman and her husband, after raising a family, had decided to live their dream.  So they sold their house and came to stay in a cabin here in the mountains, living from day to day in this place they had come to love on their many vacations here.  Just about the time money was getting low and they were discussing possible part-time work to supplement, the husband started getting a weak leg that forced him to lie down at a Memorial Day Party.  Worried, they took him to the ER, and from there right into brain surgery.  He had an absess that broke as soon as the skull was opened.  According to the doctors, only 11% of people with this condition survive -- and her husband was one of them.  Told he would never get out of a wheel chair, the two of them kept fighting together, and a year later he was up and walking, stiff but movable.  And now they own a little house on a hill and she works in the park they both love so much, and they are as happy as can be.  How amazing! 

I spent a blissful hour after this photographing the farm museum and reading about life in the Smoky Mountains.  Tough, rough, and family-oriented.  From honey to apples to cabbage to meat, they did everything on the farm.  Self-sufficient.  The hogs ran wild during the summer and were only captured and penned when it came time to fatten them up. 

While I was reading all this, I came upong a chicken in the apple house.  I peaked in the door, and there he was, staring at me suspiciously.  I greeted him and kept going, aware of a racket down by the barn.  Some alien creature was yammering in a high pitch, agressive screech, followed by a bunch of sqwaking.   There was a faintly rhythmic quality to the screech and answering chorus, and I was getting curious.  I grinned amiably at a yellow hen who waddled past me on her way to the corn house, but kept going, propelled by curiousity.  As I set foot in the barn, eager to see what the screeching creature really was, everything went suddenly silent.  I felt myself the focus of many eyes  As my own eyes adjusted, I looked up through the beams of the loft and saw a big black and white stripe rooster staring down at me.  make that two roosters.  No -- there was another head popping out of a corner.  Three.  Something stirred in the dust at my feet.  Two more roosters came around the side of an old, painted carriage and blinked at me in the dusty mots of the sunbeam in which they stood.  No one said a word.  "Aw, come on guys.  You were singing before," I complained.  "Say something."  Nothing.  One handsome gold and black fellow fluttered his feathers at me and then turned away.  A fifth and then a sixth chicken wandered into the side hall in which I stood, gave me a look that said, quite plainly: "You don't have food so you're not interesting" and wandered away again. 

After shooting a few pictures, I turned to go.  And jumped about a mile when, right overhead, one of the roosters crowed.   While he didn't say "cock a doodle doo", he did manage to convey that message using a screechy sort of 'er' sound:  "Er-a-Ererer-er!"  Happy to have someone begin the conversation, I crowed back at him.  That did it.  The roosters on the floor fluffed and croodled -- no way can I begin to represent that sound in print -- and wadded off enthusiastically toward the center hall of the barn.  Bidding farewell to the crowing rooster, I followed them through the barn, trying to get a picture of them flapping their wings.  I missed every flap, and had to bid farewell to them in the end when they went through a fence into territory forbidden to visitors. 

By this time I was cold, so I nipped back into the visitor center to get warm by the crackling fire and inquire about the chickens.  Then I headed up the road, first to photograph and old mill, and then an old baptist church on a ridge deep in the woods.  Then I was climbing thousands of feet up the side of the mountain to the gap, where a couple of inches of snow appeared to delight the folks from Tennessee, North Carolina and the other Southern states.  I didn't feel it necessary to mention I'd left more snow than that in my back yard.  It was enough for me to see there absolute delight.  The kids were so well wrapped they looked like they were heading to the Alaskan tundra, and they were shrieking with delight and throwing snow balls and sledding down small hills.  Wonderful to watch -- and they couldn't have picked a more beautiful setting.

I headed into Cherokee for lunch, and happened upon a local hang-out, which was fun.  Then I photographed every bear I could find, having learned that local artists had painted each of the huge creatures with a different message:  Harmony of Life, Forefathers, Cheroke Sunset, Eagle Dance, Pottery, Legendary Sunrise, Patriot Bear, and more. 

I finished up the day in the Museum of the Cherokee, making many notes about the way of life of this amazing people, and finding myself angry and so sad when I read about the Trail of Tears.  They did everything we asked of them -- everything! Many learned our ways, followed our demands, negotiated with us, some even became citizens in the attempt to stay on the land they had owned for thousands of years -- and we still drove them off.  What right did we have to say the lives of white settlers were more important than the lives of the Cherokee people?  And so many of them died in their enforced exile.   I was truly ashamed of our government and our ancestors for their treatment of these good people.

Shaken and moved by the exhibit, I purchased a few books to learn more about the Cherokee and their myths and legends, and then drove to Asheville for a relaxing dinner and an early night.