Christmas Decorations

These are photos of a variety of outdoor decorations found around Knoxville. I want to emphasize that most of these, including the next one, are not from our house. There is a style of decorations called "inflatables" and they can take many forms. Unfortunately we have not found an inflatable manger scene, just cartoon characters and the ever present Santa.Here's our front door. Jacob complains that we don't do more, to which we respond that when he grows up he can decorate his own house however he wants.
These folks have gone with a Christmas tree in lights theme, accompanied by lit candy canes.
Here's a closeup of the design.
This layout includes candy canes, a snowman, and several deer. It also featured several trees done up in colored lights.
Those with too much time on their hands wrap the trunks and branches of trees with white lights. It create a beautiful effect but it must take hours and hours to wrap all those strands of lights. This tree also holds large size shiny ornaments, which became popular this year.
This person didn't stop at decorating one tree.
Many houses are tastefully decorated with greenry around the door, accented with lights and red bows.
There's another inflatable....almost Frosty the Snowman but not quite.
This house wins the tasteful award, with lighted wreaths on all the windows.

A Day Trip to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains

We enjoyed a quick trip to Cades Cove today. Tomorrow Nancy and I go back to school following our winter break of two weeks. Cades Cove is located in the western side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It takes a little over an hour for us to reach on a day like today when there was almost no traffic. During the 1800s and early 1900s Cades Cove was home to many families who "pioneered" the area. Since the national park was established (during the 1930s) residents gradually moved and now the park has no permanent residents, just millions of tourists.

Our winter has been quite mild, though we have had a few days well below zero. Of course in the mountains it gets even colder than down in the valley (in Knoxville). We found our share of icicles as we drove towards Cades Cove.
When we were driving home we saw the big ice formation directly behind Nancy crash to the ground. Timing is everything!
Cades Cove is circled by an 11 mile long loop road. There were many deer grazing on what little grass they could find. With so little car traffic the deer could cross the road at will.
This is the first historic structure you find on the loop road...the Elijah Oliver cabin. Oliver was one of the first settlers, arriving in Cades Cove in the 1810s and building this cabin soon thereafter.
We found it incredible that a cabin like this could be built with very few tools and without much help from others. The logs are squared and fitted together at the corners with dovetail joints. The cracks between the logs are filled with a mixture of mud, sand and small rocks.
Here we are inside the cabin. It was colder inside than out! Jacob suggested that it would be a good idea to have a fire in the fireplace.

Most cabins had a nice front and side porch. I bet the shade would be perfect on a hot day.

Cades Cove is nestled between two ridges of mountains and has awesome views around every corner.

There are four or five small churches in Cades Cove. All were built in the early 1800s and most still hold worship services. They all have graveyards and relatives of the original settlers can still be buried there.
All the churches feature a bell tower, peaked roof, and white exterior. Most of them were Baptist, this one was Methodist.

To help visitors understand life in Cades Cove, there is a community of buildings which represent a center city of sorts. Included are a blacksmith shop, grain mill, barn, smoke house, and store/residence hall. Though snakes go into hibernation of sorts during the winter, this sign made us keep an eye out for them.

The grain mill is turned by water power. This trough carries water downhill from the creek. The water then shoots over the top of a big wheel attached to the grinding stones inside the mill. Notice the ice which has formed on the sides of the trough.Here's a wider view of the trough leading up to the water wheel and the mill.
Needless to say, the water wheel was not moving, frozen in a huge amount of ice.
Behind the residence hall we found a young buck grazing on grass. In the grass near the buck you can see a little bit of snow left in the shade.
I'm not an expert on bucks but I believe this one is three or four years old, since each antler has three points.
Some cabins came complete with barns and smoke houses.
This barn is cantilevered, meaning the roof extends well beyond the edges of the foundation. This style allowed for wagons and animals to be sheltered under the roof without the need for doors or walls. It could also be used for drying crops.
On the way home we stopped to admire another massive icicle-covered cliff.
Some of the icicles are as big as your arm!