Last week, Chris and I traveled to my dad's timeshare in Sevierville, TN for some Smoky Mountains action. All in all, it was a lot different from the beach-themepark-mall "vacations" I've taken before -- and even different from the trip to the NC mountains we took last year, probably because this wasn't the dead season. Would I do it again? Despite the fact that I'm not an outdoorsy type, absolutely...although, I would go with some changes.

THE GOOD:

1. The mountains. People might come here for Ripley's or Dollywood (why!?), but for me, this was the main attraction and they were absolutely beyond compare. Even Sapphire, which was actually at a significant elevation, didn't come close. Coming from the sandhills, it was awesome (and a little frightening) to drive along a sheer dropoff to a lush valley 4000 feet below, to go up a few thousand feet and go from sweltering hot to a little chilly, and to pass a dozen little creeks along the way.


2. Chris, last but not least. I've always felt that it's important to do significant events with your SO before marriage, and while I am in no position to consider the circumstance, I feel that it's made our commitment a lot stronger. Maybe I'm overstating the case, but he stayed calm under pressure while I was super frustrated, helped me play house, and most importantly, we had a ton of fun together. I would've enjoyed this trip with my family, too, but this introduced another dimension entirely. :)

THE BAD:

1. Basically, to get to the national park entrance in Gatlinburg, you have to travel through a 14-mile strip including the towns of Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. And it was a strip in every sense of the word, every bit as glitzy and tacky as Myrtle Beach. I get that it's a tourist location, but it was jarring inching my way through that and realizing I had passed 3 Econo Lodges, 3 TGI Fridays, a constellation of Shoneys, rebel pride stores and about 5 "As Seen On TV" stores! So, if I go back, I would definitely choose lodging a bit more removed from that madness.


2. The state line at I-40. There was a rock slide either earlier this year or last, and I guess the DOT is still working on fitting iron mesh over the rock, resulting in a one-lane road for about 12 miles. My dad warned me to arrive there before 12, but being the person I am, I decided that leaving at 10 would be just fine. Well, we got to the 12 mile marker at 3:30, and proceeded to inch our way through the gorge into Tennessee for the next two and a half hours. My foot felt fused to my clutch afterwards, and having to travel a winding road to get to the resort only made me crankier. Of course, we got to the state line at 11:30 on the way back and saw the traffic flowing smoothly. I won't ignore a truck driver's advice again.

Minor complaints aside, so many awesome things happened that I could probably reach the character limit summarizing it all...being the lazy person I am, though, I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves. The area really is beautiful.



( Cades Cove invites you in... )

“I know who you are.”

Her eyes adjusted quickly in the dimness of the tavern. Ansel sat down across the table, stinking of sweat and wine, and leaned forward towards her. He was an imposing man even during the best of times, and the look he was giving her just now made her feel edgy.

“So do my children.” She laughed, desperate to ignore the ominous way his words hung in the air. There was no reason for her nervousness; Ansel was a fisherman, no learned scholar or hedge wizard who could see past her glamour. Yet the look in his eyes betrayed a certainty too profound for words.

He leaned back in his seat, each movement so economical and precise that she feared he was no mere fisherman. His words confirmed it. “I am no fool, and neither are you. Let’s not mince words. I know you are not who you appear to be.”

That was all it took. She felt the cringing guilt, the regret and horror all over again.

Could his knives have followed me even here?

No, those knives are meant for someone else, not me.

( Read more... )

Rank on rank they stand in the soft blue darkness and sing. From their ragged cluster, from a multitude of wheezing lungs, rises a plea for their first loves, and last, for mother, for death, for a blessing from the thousand nameless gods who never saved them. For days that were and days that are and days that never will be. The cacophony rings under the merciless night sky, across the valley far below them, and over the ravaged corpses of ten thousand men, its reedy echo fading as swiftly as their lives ended in a chaos of mud and steel.

Sunlight slants over the lustrous figure wasted as any magazine model glassy eyes smooth skin blood red as lipstick smeared across her chewed lips she's sobbing and screaming as the flickering flame dances over the curve of her ear my hot touch meandering lower as the strange erotic energy rises higher and higher the intimate curves of flexing muscle scream for clemency but what is given must be taken away.

Three figures walk out into the snow. It's falling harder now, wet thick flakes, and the girls are shivering and struggling in their nightgowns. The third is taller, bulkier in his warm winter gear, but he sags under the weight of the duffel bag.

The field would take a day or more to cross, but it's not a complete clearing. Here and there they pass a tree or bush, and once the hollowed-out shell of an old farm, all blanketed in white. No one has been here for quite some time. Every so often, he looks over his shoulder at the car falling fast behind them, at their footprints disappearing beneath the ceaseless fall of the snow. He sees this and his expression seems to deem it good.

Both the girls are blonde and colorless, their cheeks bloody against their gags and their ankles red with the cold. Surely this cold, the threat of exposure should be enough to make them stop their course, but it does not. There is an air of inevitability here, the sharp tang of a predator just behind them urging them forward.

Once, the girl in front trips over a root hidden by a snowdrift, and the arms tied behind her back fail to break her fall. There she stays, the second standing silent vigil, till the third catches up to them. The man bodily hauls her to her feet again, all without a word, and they resume their limping pace. The ankle twisted in the fall turns a darker red, then purple. Still, they do not stop.

Eventually they pass beneath a cluster of trees, whose branches lattice the brooding gray sky above with their skinny black presence. Nothing is around for miles. Here he stops them, laying down his bag, arranging the girls in a position that holds significance only to him.

While he digs, the girls sidle closer together, letting their arms touch. In their closeness exists a tenuous solidarity, an understanding. There will be no clemency, they seem to know, no hope for mercy or even reason. Their eyes are flat, not even betraying the primal state of fear. Fear has been sublimated, swallowed, pissed into the snow. Fear no longer has its hold on them.

When everything is how he means to leave it, he lowers the shovel and comes to stand before the girls. No words are exchanged, yet a tension lies between them taut as a piano wire, a new understanding between the captor and his prey. They watch soberly as he draws the pistol, focusing on the gleam of the metal, the pendulum-like way he waves it back and forth, teasing.

There they stand in the swirling snow, shivering and waiting.

The first pull is always the hardest. But there is no way to shout, no way to raise the hue and cry. The shot comes out muffled, as if traveling through layers of cloth, or flesh, before it takes off half her head. Blood and brains explode across the snow in latticework as the girl falls dreamily to her knees, as if in prayer. There she stays for a moment, a rarity, before falling away from all his careful precautions to spread her bloody mess.

The other doesn't take her eyes away the entire time. Only now does fear creep into them, the uncertainty building for hours cruelly ripped away. Her gaze slides from the corpse to her murderer, pleading and accusatory at once, and she starts to cry, and the tears freeze on her scabbed and bloody cheeks.

He considers for a moment before he shoots her too. One of her arm jerks against her bonds and her eyes open wide, but that's all. The first shot takes her squarely in the chest, sending her stumbling backward into the shallow grave, but he keeps shooting until he's emptied the entire clip into her. When the last echo fades he approaches her, kneels down beside her. Smoke rises from her body, a helix of misery and blood slowly twining, and then unraveling to disappear imperceptibly in the cold winter air.