My Daily Commute

Every day when I drive to Bandy Creek Visitor Center I go down, down, down to Leatherwood Bridge, cross the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, and then go up, up, up to the other side. I decided I had better get some pictures of the gorgeous views along my commute! The easiest place to do that is from the bridge itself, which has a wide shoulder that I was able to park on and get some pictures upstream and downstream. I did this twice - once at around 10 a.m. yesterday morning, and again today on the way home after work, so as to get the morning and evening lighting. I also stopped at the East Rim overlook, since it's been a while and I wanted to get another look before the colors start changing.

Here are the mid-morning pictures.

This is looking downstream, towards Angel Falls. That old bridge used to be the main one! It's to the right as I'm driving to work.

Camouflage Fail

Just a tip - if you ever get reincarnated as a Walking Stick insect, you will not utilize your natural camouflage effectively by trying to hide on a stainless steel drinking fountain.

Angel Falls

This week it was neither overpoweringly hot, nor about to thunderstorm, so I finally went hiking again! I walked the Angel Falls Rapids trail - the full two miles this time, all the way out to the rapids. I finally saw one of the places people ask about the most! I also saw, not only some new wildflowers, but the fruits of some of the flowers I saw last time I walked this trail in late May.

I saw a lot of yellow flowers. Yellow seems to be the default color at this time of year, late summer getting into early fall. Yellow and white and sometimes purple. This could be a black-eyed Susan, but as I've mentioned before, there are just too many similar-shaped yellow flowers for me to be able to say.

Most of the trail had view like this - above the river, with glimpses of the water through the trees.