I wrote a blog in December entitled, “Travel Post From Atlanta: The Walk Outside Our Door,” in which I argued one doesn’t have to get far away to get away. We have been spending the last week on Norris Lake in East Tennessee. This is a place that is as familiar to us as our home in Atlanta. While we have been here many times over the last eight years or so, I had never taken the walk all the way up the hill back up to the road. Instead I had worked out in the small fitness center watching CNN and listening to music on the headphones.

This year I have largely abandoned the fitness center in order to head uphill and pay more attention to where we are. Each day I have taken the hour long walk I have seen different things, including a red fox and a great horned owl. I have also seen rabbits everywhere.

I have only taken the camera with me once, and unfortunately it was the haziest day so far. I am still learning the hard way to take the camera every time both because of the photographs I will miss otherwise and because of the fact that having it influences the way I see what is around me. I wrote about this idea on a post entitled, “A Way of Seeing: Learning to Make Photographs.” In short, I notice more and observe somewhat differently when I have a camera. For instance, I had walked by the tree below several times before I took notice of the plank that has grown up within it. Any idea how this happened?

Because of the early morning fog and haze, the walk didn’t offer up any great shots of the big view from the ridge top, but being naive, I tried to get one any way.

At the top of the ridge is the Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church. Its cemetery has very recent stones as well as some weathered limestone ones that appear to go back to the mid-1800s. I particularly liked the wreaths on the door.

After the stop by the church the walk is all down hill detouring from the route back to the start in order the stop by the marina. Down below even with the dry conditions this summer, the foliage is lush enough to provide respite from the heat if not the humidity.

From the Marina it is a short walk along the lake back to where we are stay.