Still a bit of color by Hiwassee Lake. 

Train in the rain (Saturday). 

Arriving back in Blue Ridge. 

Not the best day for a ride, but it was dry when they started out. 

Election Day, rainy. This may finish off the leaves, but still some color out there. 

Saturday

Love this piece of land on Ballplay Creek (part of Tellico Lake, Tennessee). 

Smokies in the distance. 

Still colorful near the Little Tennessee River. 

Ft. Loudoun, the old fort being reconstructed at the state park site at the junction of Little Tennessee and Tellico rivers.
More photos of the fort taken July 05, see July 4 entry.
 

Some sort of camp going on here. 

A cold spectacular November day

Last light. 

Looking toward Murphy and the Valley River mountains beyond. 

The color is mostly gone except for the oaks, and when the late afternoon light hits them, spectacular! 

Snowbird mountains in distance. 

Nearly full. 

The horses are here. 

Happy inside. 

Enjoying the view. 

Barn at the Shoals. 

Cocke County

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time in this East Tennessee county, particularly the Cosby area, where dear friends live.

So I was a bit surprised to see reference on the blog of UT journalism prof. Bob Stepno to a fairly prominent story in the Los Angeles Times: A county of bad ol' boys. USA Today's On Deadline blog linked to the story, too. The blog also links to a huge chronology of corruption in Cocke County that ran in the Knoxville News a year ago: Cocke County Confidential. Wow.

I certainly heard the stories about Cocke, mostly related to its history of moonshining (but what county around here doesn't have those?) and cockfighting; of course in the 70s and 80s there were stories of drug cartels operating there. But the news stories talk about much, much more: the LA Times story mentions "dirty cops, brothel owners and incorrigible outlaws" and the Knox Times story certainly corroborates that history. Fascinating stuff.

(The photo: overlooking Cosby towards the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, from Foothills Parkway, taken October 2003.)