What a Weird Freaking Year.

In late 2019 Carole and I were busy making all kinds of plans for 2020. I was already retired, Carole had plenty of vacation leave built up, money was not an issue, our travel trailer was in good shape and I had just paid cash for the best motor vehicle we have ever owned.

We had planned out a number of vacations starting with our Springtime journey to Florida to seek out the giant freshwater springs there and to kayak and snorkel the clear spring runs and deep headsprings where millions of gallons of fresh water come rushing to the surface from limestone aquifers. We had reserved all of our campsites, paid for each spot, and had toted up and bought everything we were going to need and use.

Then, a month before the trip...coronavirus shut down the nation.

And this was only the most bothersome bit of the strangeness of this year. A President who seems to be loathed by anyone with the capacity to think. A hatred that goes far beyond even the rage I used to see aimed at Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or George W. Bush. This is something that seethes and boils and threatens to turn into revolution. Yeah, laugh if you will, but if things get much worse...well, then think again.

I've lost track of the numbers of people filing for unemployment benefits. Almost every working person I know has either lost their job, or has seen their hours cut to the bone. No benefits remaining. No insurance left. Nothing in the saving account but dust and despair.

2020 was supposed to have been the fist big breakout year of my retirement. Alas, no. I am reminded of the cautionary quote often credited to John Lennon: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Yes, Johnny, my sad, murdered friend, that is indeed a reasonable definition. This year has proven it out.

We all spent weeks and months locked down. I made do with trips to the grocery store, the hardware shop, and many walks around my rural neighborhood. There was no traffic on the streets. We even stopped hearing motor and tire noise on the Interstate two miles away. The skies ceased to buzz with the scrape of jets against the clouds. Sometimes it was so silent that when I sat in our two-acre yard I thought I was off in one of my wilderness areas.

During all of this Carole and I planted a garden. I did a lot of yard work. The one-mile jaunts around our giant rural block became routine. My hair grew into a great, gray, bushy mess. I longed for a trip to the barber.

Now, things have loosened up. Five or six jets a day now growl across the heavens. We can hear traffic from I-485 again, but still not as heavy. Fortunately my son and I can jump in that new truck and head to the mountains for hikes to see landscapes and forests and wildlife. And, thus, the eye-candy for the photographs I present now. I just bought a few new lenses for my also-new camera. Buying a new camera and lenses does not mean you suddenly produce finer photographs. There's a learning curve with new equipment just like there is with anything else. I'm still trying to fine tune how to use them effectively. I'm getting there, but I'm not totally happy with the results.

And so, here are some photos from my third trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park since the lockdown was partially relaxed. It's beginning to look as if they may be forced to reenact that lockdown. Infections are soaring. Death rates from Covid-19 are pushing higher. Our plans were to fly to Italy next year to visit Florence so that I could knock that visit to see Brunelleschi's Dome off the old bucket list. But the EU distrusts us so much that they don't even want infected US citizens coming over there.

Damn.

2020 keeps delivering unfortunate surprises. What nightmares is it holding in reserve?

I don't know why beautiful butterflies are attracted to fresh horse poop, but they are. I also don't know how this ant climbed aboard this butterfly's wing, but she did.

These turkeys were in the Oconaluftee section of the Park.

Westerners don't see a big deal when it comes to witnessing an elk in a National Park. But the ecosystems here in the east haven't had them for hundreds of years. They've reintroduced them in North Carolina. They started with 40 or so elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Since reintroduction I've heard varying accounts of the numbers there now, but 250 or so seems to be what I hear most often. They're obviously spreading out. I used to see them only in Cataloochee, but these were photographed in Oconaluftee at roughly 2000 feet above sea level in the fields there. We ended up seeing almost twenty elk on Tuesday.

This elk we saw on Balsam Mountain at roughly 5000 feet above seal level. This was in a heavily forested area with only a few patches of grass and no fields, at all. The elk are obviously filling up all ecological niches they once inhabited.

The habitat is obviously good at Oconaluftee and the Qualla.