The Real Reason To Go To Gatlinburg

Posted on March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 by Dusty Roads

I touched on this yesterday in my post about Cade’s Cove. When all the moonshine and whiskey, train rides and Dollywood are said and done, the real reason I want to go to Gatlinburg is the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

The Park Services page turned out to be an awesome resource for planning my visit. Since I’ve been struggling with arthritis and recovering from my spill in San Diego, I don’t know how much stamina I’ll have for hikes. I hope to be able to do some but it’s too soon to tell. My right hip still acts up quite a lot. Just in case hiking is not an option the website lists the auto tours.

An auto tour of the park offers a chance to see panoramic vistas, cascading mountain rivers, weathered historic buildings, and majestic forests stretching to the horizon.

We know there’s one though Cades Cove but there’s a whole list of others:

Cataloochee Valley
Newfound Gap Road
Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail
Upper Tremont Road

In addition, the book Smokies Road Guide covers main thoroughfares and scenic backroads in the park. This book and the self-guiding auto tour booklets listed above are available at park visitor centers and online. Self-guiding tour booklets are also available from dispensers at the start of the roads they cover.

I have my National Parks Pass and my “Passport books” to get stamps but there’s no entrance fee to the park anyway! Yup one of the most visited parks in the US is free.

I’m heading to the park in the spring. Anytime is beautiful in this park but the Great Smokey National Park is knick named the Wildflower National Park. Spring and summer are renown for spectacular displays of wildflowers along roads and trails.

And along with the wildflowers are wildlife. The Site offers tips for wildlife viewing. Some are standard like view early or late in the day but I especially liked this advice: Viewing wildlife in the Smokies can be challenging because most of the park is covered by dense forest. Open areas like Cataloochee and Cades Cove offer some of the best opportunities to see white-tailed deer, black bear, raccoon, turkeys, woodchucks, and other animals. The narrow, winding road of Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail encourages motorists to travel at a leisurely pace and sometimes yields sightings of bear and other wildlife.

I’m so ready to go check this out! I’m polishing and cleaning the camera, lenses and filter. I hope I can get some photos that come close to the beautiful ones I get to see when I search online.

A Simple Flower

Posted on August 11, 2013August 11, 2013 by Dusty Roads

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun. I will touch a hundred
flowers and not pick one.
– Edna St. Vincent Millay

Butterflies of Cape Cod

Posted on August 2, 2013August 2, 2013 by Dusty Roads

As you know I explored the Butterfly place in Westford recently. As a result of that post I was told about another Butterfly house located on Cape Cod. A quick online search turned up an address in Bourne, 26 Herring Pond Rd. I plugged it into my GPS and was off to check it out.

About half way there I realized that I knew where I was going. I’d seen the sign for Butterflies of Cape Cod many times as I headed for the Sagamore Bridge.

I always promised myself I would stop in one day. I didn’t realize it was a butterfly habitat. I thought it was just a gift shop.

Sure enough, my GPS led me right to this spot.

The butterfly house is located behind the gift shop which is in a pretty little house. You enter the front door into the shop and go out the back into a yard. The screened butterfly habitat is right there.

The habitat is smaller than The Butterfly Place in Westford or Magic Wings in Deerfield but that isn’t the only difference. Westford and Deerfield celebrate tropical butterflies. This little habitat features local butterflies and moths. This is nice because you get to see butterflies up close that might only flit quickly away in the open. These are butterflies that could be in anyone’s yard or field.

As you first enter the habitat there are glass enclosures containing caterpillars and chrysalis and pupae. Pass through another screen and you are in the little container garden.

As soon as I entered I spotted a big ole Luna Moth. These are such beautiful creatures. The green shade is “other worldly”. I have seen them before but rarely and it’s always a treat. One of the owners was there and he said it was just sitting there now because it was daytime but that in the evening the Luna Moths get very active floating around on those gorgeous wings.

There were a lot of Monarch butterflies. They seemed to be very social insects gathering in groups on the flowers.

They made great subjects as they paid no attention to the humans wandering around.

Two other butterflies that I’ve often see were also present, one called a Buckeye and another called the Painted Lady.

We had to watch where we stepped because some of those silly butterflies like sunning themselves on the warm, cement path.

There were a couple of local swallow tail butterflies but as is so often in these habitats the tails were damaged or missing.

The challenge was the little white butterfly called a Cabbage Butterfly. They are small and they don’t land long.

Even when they do land they often keep their wings fluttering. I don’t think they are rare. I can remember seeing them everywhere when I was growing up.

I spotted some caterpillars climbing in the greenery, future butterflies on the move.

As I was leaving I stopped in to chat with the proprietors. They can be found on Facebook (who can’t these days) but if you like them you will get updates when a new butterfly hatches in the enclosure.

The little store has lots of nice things from jewelry to books to miniature butterfly enclosures for kids to learn from. Plus they have lots of pictures of their butterflies. I wonder if they would be interested in carrying my cards? I could make a special set of just their butterflies. I think I’ll take a sample next time I go down. Never hurts to ask!