Tennessee Mountains......a beauty beyond belief!

Home again and still feeling the healing sun, sand and sea.   There is a second part to our trip that I shall share.  I mentioned that we had to detour into the mountains in Tennessee and I was disappointed we couldn't see any of the terrain and beauty.   Well, on our way back we decided to re-visit that detour in the day time and see exactly what we had missed.   It was absolutely beautiful!    The mountains, the rocks jutting out onto the road...the trees almost toppling into the road and the water of a river running along side the road sometimes deep in a ravine and sometimes beside us.    The most interesting part was that juxtaposed to this magnificent beauty was poverty beyond belief.    Places so small and decrepit that one couldn't image people living in them....and yet some with so many garden gnomes and other stuff outside you knew that whoever lived there felt it was home.   We even found a gated community with a mountain top restaurant in this place....again two opposites side by side.  I am always a little disturbed when I see such poverty in a country that also has so much wealth.....we live in a very confusing world sometimes.

I am happy we took the time to to re-visit this little part of the world.   We spoke to a couple of people and a kinder more congenial people I don't think you could ever meet.    I feel blessed that I was able to find this place through a traffic jam on I-75.....I think it may have been one of the highlights of my trip.  I will share some of my photos and let pictures tell you the rest of the story.

Just a taste of what we saw.....if you are ever traveling down the I-75 I suggest at Jellico Tennessee you get off the highway and take 25W for an hour or so....it is so worth the trip and to see something more than road and billboards.....a creation that must have come from somewhere other than human hands....and a people who have dug out (literally ) a life in it.