A walk in a calendar

We spent all day in Great Smoky Mtn National Park and whether we were driving, hiking or just sitting on a bench, the scenery was breathtaking. I took so many pictures with my camera and each one I thought belonged on a calendar. 

My phone pictures don't show the brilliant colors but with 140 different deciduous trees, each corner we turned held more suprises. 

When we entered the park it was sunny and 50 degrees so we decided to go to the top and do some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. By the time we were at 6600 feet it was 32 degrees and blowing so hard, limbs were falling everywhere. We made it about a mile just to say we had done it but then we turned around and headed back down to the valley. You can see that Scott was all bundled up. 

The hike on the valley floor was much warmer and walking along the Deep Creek(a misnomer) was really nice. With all the waterfalls , it sort of reminded me of Silver Falls. 

We talked to several local people about the effect the shut down had on them and they all said, if the weather doesn't hold allowing tourists to continue coming through November, they may have to close. GSMNP is a little different in that they don't charge an entrance fee. This is because some of the roads are used for local traffic. So during the shutdown, the people in Townsend couldn't even get to Gaitlanburg. That's just WRONG. The people we talked to near Mammoth Caves, we're hurting too. What do we do to make sure it doesn't happen again?