Leaving the Smokeys

The Tennessee portion of my vacation is coming to an end here shortly as we’re packing up and getting ready to return home. We’ve enjoyed staying in a cabin on the side of a mountain that overlooks multiple other mountains and I’ve greatly enjoyed slowing things down and being away from the busyness of the city. Watching the sunrise over the mountains and trees started each day with a picturesque view that I’ll never forget. To ensure I wouldn’t forget it, I took a load of pictures which will undoubtedly make their way to various screensavers.

I’m going to miss staying in the mountains but I’m not going to miss driving on them. I’m not driving an SUV with offroad tires or anything and with such steep inclines, the roads can get pretty slick and easy to slide on. What I am going to miss is the views, the relaxing atmosphere of being in the country, and the time I took to slow everything down and enjoy what was around me.

I’m going to spend more time outside of city life and go to more rural areas. I think it’s good for one’s wellbeing to get away and specifically to a place where the world is all about what’s around you and where the rest of the world is always there to go back to if need be. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed playing RDR2 so much because it allowed me to go back to a slower, simpler time where you didn’t have a constant bombardment of news that you couldn’t tell if it was factual or clickbait. You only had the daily newspaper to keep you connected and you had the people around you. If you haven’t taken the time to go temporarily live in a rural place, I’d highly recommend you take the time to travel out to one and stay there for a while. It’s refreshing and enlightening and lets you truly appreciate all that’s around you without the constant flows of information from other areas that really have no effect on you but make it seem like they do.

I’m gonna play lots of RDR2 when I get home.