The Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited National Park in the United States. With over eleven million visitors a year, and within a day's drive of half of the countries population, many of the parks more popular areas can become quite crowded.
However, there are some places of unparalleled beauty and historic significance that are far removed from large numbers of Park visitors. One such place is the Cataloochee Valley. Because it requires a little more effort to get there, the Cataloochee Valley is rarely crowded; more than likely, there will be fewer visitors in this large area than in any other place in the park.
It is also here in Cataloochee, that the Park Service reintroduced elk earlier in the decade. Although elk roamed these mountains for hundreds of years, they were extirpated by settlers in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. In an effort to return the ecosystem to its historic diversity, the elk have been imported from western parks into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The result is a spectacular addition to the plethora of wildlife already in the park. If you arrive in the early morning or stay into the late evening, you may be rewarded by hearing a bull bugling. The sound is indescribable, high pitched and loud, and serves as both a call to his herd and as a warning to would-be interlopers.
Although the black bear used to be the star of the Smokies, the elk are fast replacing there ursine counterparts in popularity! And your chances of seeing elk in Cataloochee is great, as the herds have increased in number over the years.
So if you live in the east, and want to see elk in their natural habitat, come to Cataloochee in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You will not be disappointed!
Photos courtesy of SmokyPhotos.com
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Eric Zeier, former University of Georgia and NFL starting quarterback, visited the ERA United Realty office in Newnan Georgia on Wednesday, October 8 2008. He delivered a motivational presentation to the agents and staff attending the regular weekly sales meeting.
Inspiration comes from a variety of stimuli. The slightest nuance of visual beauty, constructive encouragement or vicarious reading can motivate us to take quick and decisive action.
On Sunday I had the chance to visit one of our favorite area spots. Less than an hour from our house in Sharpsburg is Warm Springs, Georgia. It was here that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to seek treatment for poliomyelitis. He fell in love with the area, and constructed the only home he ever owned, known here as the Little White House.
It is somewhat humbling to sit in exactly the same spot that the President of the United States did during the greatest crisis our country ever faced. During World War II, President Roosevelt made many trips to Warm Springs and many decisions that affected the destiny of our great land were made in the area, and I know that many of them were made at Dowdell's Knob.
As I mentioned in previous posts, I was an Internet pioneer. I had web pages available on a server before most people had even heard of the World Wide Web. It was a new and challenging world, completely undefined and raw, and ready to be used.
Those words changed my Internet life. I began posting Smoky Mountain Photos, and in 1999, the final version of SmokyPhotos was born. SmokyPhotos soon rose to the top of the search engines, and to this day is still listed number one on most search engines as a source of Smoky Mountain Photographs.
The key is separation, and what separates you from your competition is your perceived level of skill and expertise. My father's advice let to Internet superiority that I have not since relinquished.
Life isn't always about life or death decisions. Often, it's just a matter of determining what is most important at the moment and dealing with it!
If you have been following the news lately, you know that we are living in troubled times. Here in the Southeast, we have been hot especially hard with the economic downturn, the mortgage crisis and the lost of investments. Add to that a gasoline and a water shortage, and it's hard to go about doing business as usual.
Our destiny lies in our determination to prevail, and our spirit must move us onward regardless of the circumstances. This is our time, and it is up to us to make the best of it!
The 2008 fall Taste of Newnan was held on Thursday October 2, 2008. The downtown square was alive with food aficionados who were there to sample the fare of Newnan and Coweta County's finest eateries!
If you like home cooking, just like your mother used to make, then plan a visits to Claire's Love Your Mother Café in 
You might even consider having your lunch packed "to-go" and walk across to 
Daily made from scratch meats include:
Every October I take several trips to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park to photograph the change of the seasons. In the Southeast, the mountains and autumn are intrinsically intertwined. The brilliant leaf color, the cooler temperatures, and the abundance of visible wildlife all contribute to a rejuvenating experience.
But, sad to say, this year might be different. Downturns in the real estate market have made discretionary cash very limited. It is also unnerving to "hit the road" with an uncertain supply of gasoline. In our part of the country, only one in twelve stations have gasoline to sell, and when you get it, it's a long wait at the pump.
I am what you might call now, an early adopter. I discovered the Internet before the word Internet even existed. On a cold winter's day in 1971 I sent my first email on what was called the Arpanet. That changed my life forever.
Bob Dylan suggested in lyric that some inexplicable actions of people and society had no real explanation, they just continued to happen.
There are a lot of stressful circumstances in today's world. The challenge of making a living, the ever rising costs of food and fuel, and an overall decline in the quality of life can easily put a strain on your disposition.
Life in the 21st Century has become very complicated. As a result of our ingenuity and in an effort to make life easier, tens of thousands of time saving devices have been invented. As a result, we spend more learning to use a multitude of new products than the time we might actually save by using them.