A CHANGE FOR PEACE – A Short Story
Ancil walked along the pathway along the back of the garden center in Cherokee. It was called the Little Willow Garden Center, the name drawn from the last names of the two families, the Littlejohns and the Wilnotys, that jointly owned the garden center’s land along the highway as well as land beyond it. Ancil stopped to pull some weeds from a plant bed and picked up a few tree limbs that had blown down on the path from the storm last night.
He glanced up then, to see Euna Littlejohn coming toward him up the path. She waved, smiling that smile of hers that always made his heart skip a few beats. Euna had strong Cherokee looks, the black hair, olive skin, high cheekbones, thick dark hair and brown eyes common to the Eastern Cherokee of North Carolina. She was a strong, gifted, creative woman, attractive but not beautiful, smart and kind. The adjectives came easily the more he came to know her.
“Good afternoon to you,” she called out, drawing closer and dropping the big bucket of bulbs she carried to the ground for a moment. “Are we still meeting for dinner Sunday evening when we’re both off work? I already told the family I had shopping to do and would be gone for a time.”
Ancil studied her for a moment. “Did your family ask if you’d be seeing me, and did you tell them you would?” He saw her eyes drop. “I guess that means you didn’t,” he added more softly,
She sighed. “It would only cause more trouble and argument, but I want time with you.”
“Should we risk that?” He lifted her chin to look at him.
“Yes, I want to see you, Ancil. I want to spend time with you.” She leaned closer to kiss him softly.
Ancil’s good sense and caution slipped away then and he kissed her back. After a minute though he stepped away. “Don’t tell anyone you are coming to Bryson City to see me, Euna. My Uncle Charlie is still recovering, and if I come to meet you for dinner and leave him alone, I don’t want any of your family showing up to cause harassment and trouble for him again.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I am so sorry my brother Ross and Jase Wilnoty came and caused trouble for him.”
Ancil felt his anger rise. “They more than caused trouble. They threatened him, an old man wearing an orthopedic ankle brace on a healing ankle. Uncle Charlie talked back to them and they grew aggressive. Jase Wilnoty pulled a gun on him and waved it around, talking mean and ugly. A gun, Euna. Uncle Charlie’s dog Sunner flew at Jase, barking at Ross, brave and protective, and Jase shot him. He shot Uncle Charlie’s dog.”
She looked away, having difficulty meeting his gaze.
Ancil shook his head. “Sunner is all right now, thankfully. My Uncle Charlie’s neighbors next door came running when they heard the gunshot and Jase and Ross fled. The Jolsons helped Uncle Charlie get the dog to the vet.” He paused. “I know the police in Cherokee came to talk to your brother and Jase afterward, but nothing came of it but a warning.”
“They lied about everything,” she said, her own eyes flashing.
“I heard some of the lies they told later.” He glanced at the bucket on the ground. “You had better go take these bulbs to the new garden bed your father is creating. I was sent to dig up and divide more to bring back and plant, too. Your father wants more color in the long bed near the street front.”
“You won’t let this break us up?” she pleaded.
Ancil tried to decide what to say. “I may have no choice. I have already been given veiled threats that the Wilnotys and your family don’t want me working at the garden center anymore, and I don’t want to risk harm to my uncle.” He touched her face. “They want to break us up, and they want me to leave the area. Jase and Ross told my Uncle Charlie he had better encourage me to go back home where I came from and to stop trying to push my way into their families and lives. They reminded him I wasn’t full-blooded Cherokee, that my father was a white man even though my mother was Cherokee.”
She bristled. “Most of our people are not full-blooded Cherokee. You know that.”
“Yes, but your family and the Wilnotys have long ties here in North Carolina, linked into the original Cherokee who stayed behind in these mountains long ago. They have clan belonging and lands. I am an outsider. My mother’s Cherokee people were driven west from these lands on the Trail of Tears long ago.”
He paused. “The real issue is that your family and the Wilnotys want you and Jase Wilhoty to marry. As I have been told often, it has long been planned.”
She stomped her foot. “Planned by others, not by me. There is a dark side to Jase Wilnoty. He is not a man I want to spend my life with.”
“When I first came, when I saw you and asked about you, I was told you were promised and basically engaged to Jase Wilnoty. He has certainly told me so often enough himself.”
“Should others decide my life?” she asked in anger, tears in her eyes again. “I have never promised myself to Jase Wilnoty. I admit I have long been told how good it would be if our families were linked by blood. They all know I live with my grandmother and that she wants me to have her home and property when I marry.”
“It is a fine, well-built home and a large portion of your grandmother’s property includes sections of land that are a part of the nursery and garden center.” He smoothed his hand down her hair. “The Littlejohn and Wilnoty families will not allow me to easily interfere in their well-laid plans, Euna, no matter how qualified I might be to help improve and run the family business. With each day their hatred and resentment toward me grows, and even worse, I know Jase has come after you more aggressively and been abusive.”
“Who told you that?” She wiped away more tears.
“I hear things. Other people hear and see things. It is a small world here. Is it not true?”
She put a fist to her mouth, crying again. “So should I marry such a man who would try to rape me, who gave me bruises and threatened me?”
“Before I came, did he ever hurt you?”
She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her face. “No, but I heard other stories that weren’t good and I have seen his cruelty to animals. I watched him heartlessly shoot a songbird from a tree one day, laughing over it. He frightens me now.”
A voice called out, interrupting them. “Euna. Are you coming with those bulbs?”
“I’ve got to go,” she whispered. “That’s my father calling. I don’t want more trouble for you.”
“Nor do I,” he said quietly as he watched her race down the pathway.
What should I do? Ancil wondered.
He talked with his uncle about it that evening as they sat on the porch after dinner. “It’s a real problem, Uncle Charlie,” he confided. “After dad died last year and after the hard year of handling all the affairs related to the estate and selling the house, I was ready for a change and a break. You know my brother Logan is stationed at the naval base in Australia now and unlikely to come home soon with the security work he does there. You’re really my only relative in the states now, so I was glad to come stay with you for a time when you called to tell me you’d fallen and broken your ankle.”
“I fell fishing, slipped on a dang rock,” his uncle said grinning. “I’m an old bachelor, so I took a chance calling you to see if you might come help me out for a time. However, I know you’ve started to really like it here, too. This area around the Smoky Mountains is a beautiful place, isn’t it? I’d hate to see you go back to Ohio again. Do you want to?”
“Not really, but the big garden center I worked with has a horticulture management job they’d like me to take this fall. It’s with Casa Verde growers, good money, a good job.”
His uncle propped his foot on a stool, wincing a little with the movement.
“Is your foot hurting?” Ancil asked, studying him for a moment. His uncle’s hair was gray and thinning now, his black glasses slipping down on his nose like they always did. But he had a happy style and manner, and a love for life, Ancil had always liked.
“I stand on my feet all day as a barber, Ancil,” his uncle answered. “My foot aches a bit at night but it’s about healed. This brace they gave me helps. But I’ll be fine. You don’t need to stay here longer for me, although I admit I’ll miss you.” He winked at Ancil. “My guess is that it’s a certain sweet Cherokee girl that’s kept you here this long more than me.”
Ancil shook his head. “It wasn’t something I expected to happen. I’ve fallen strong in love with her and she with me, Uncle Charlie, but how can I propose to her or think of a life with her knowing it will tear her family’s affection from her. They don’t like me, not any of them. I think her father respects my skills, my education, my knowledge of plants and work background with other garden centers. The others resent it, resent that I know more than they do.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Would you think it none of my business to make a suggestion?”
“No, I’d value your advice.”
His uncle leaned forward. “Well, I’ve an idea for you to consider. An old school mate of mine, Wrylin Trent, became a minister, and some years back he took the pastor’s job at a church over in Cosby, Tennessee. Do you know where that is, over the mountain from us and east of busy Gatlinburg?”
“I’ve hiked over there in past and visited around the area.”
He nodded. “Well, Wrylin and I were talking after that incident here last week. He’d given me my dog Sunner as a pup when his own dog had a litter, and you well know I was worried for Sunner there for a bit.”
“Me, too,” said Ancil, looking over at the big yellow dog asleep on the porch near them, a bandage still on his side.
“I admit I was telling Wrylin about the girl, too, and about you falling for her. I told him the man her family wanted for her wasn’t much of a man, and I told him some of what Jase Wilnoty did here, with Euna’s own brother a party to it, and some of what I’d heard he did to Euna pushing on her.” He paused to rub a hand over his neck. “I like that girl. I don’t care so much for her family though. Never have much. I even saw her own sister, giggling and sauntering down the street over here in Bryson City one day, walking right by my barber shop with Jase Wilnoty, his hands in places they didn’t to belong and his actions not like a man promised to another woman.”
“You saw that?” Ancil leaned forward with his hands fisted.
His uncle glanced toward Ancil’s fists. “That girl deserves better than that man. He will only bring her sorrows. If you stay around he’s only going to bring you sorrows, too.”
Ancil sighed. “So you think I should go back to Ohio, maybe even see if Euna would go with me? As much as she probably needs to leave, or at least get away from Jase Wilnoty, I hate to ask her to leave everyone she loves and all her family and friends behind.”
“She loves you more, son. I’ve seen it in her eyes when she’s been here, and I’ve seen the love and desire to care for her and protect her in your eyes, too. Love doesn’t come often in life, that chance to find someone you can be one with.”
Ancil leaned his head back. “I do love her, but I wish there was a better answer than taking her off to northeast Ohio, so far away from all she knows.”
His uncle grinned. “Well, I might have an answer for that, too. The Merton family, that owns the Wildflower Haven garden center and nursery over in Cosby, go to Wrylin’s church. The man that did a lot of work for them and lived on their property died last year. Will and Rowan Merton, a father and son, who own and work the nursery and garden center with their family, need more help with their place. You’ve got good skills, better than the Littlejohn and Wilnoty garden center deserves. I took the liberty of telling Wrylin about you, about the problems we’ve been having, and about the girl and my worries for her and you. Wrylin went down to visit the Mertons after our phone call, and Will and Rowan Merton would like to talk with you about a job there. Wrylin says the pay sounds good and there’s a cabin on the property where Old Billy, who worked for them before, lived. You’d have a ready-made place to live, a big garden center to work for. Wrylin says the Mertons are fine Christian folks and he’s in a position to know.”
His uncle paused and looked at Ancil. “You’re off tomorrow. Drive over there and talk to them.” He held out a piece of paper. “Here’s Will Merton’s phone number and some directions to his place. You can read more about the Wildflower Haven on the internet, too. It’s a far bigger place and operation than the little place here in Cherokee where you’ve been working. It has a fine gift shop right on the main highway, too, and the entire garden center and grounds are beautifully landscaped. I’ve stopped by there when over visiting Wrylin. It could be an answer.”
Thoughts raced through Ancil’s mind.
His uncle put a hand on his knee. “You won’t know if it might be an option unless you check it out.” He laughed then. “Wrylin said he’d marry you and Euna right there at the church, too, if she decides to run off with you. She’d have a name change then, and it would be difficult after that to try to get her to come back here.”
Ancil ran a hand over his neck. “They might come after me to hurt me or to hurt her. They’re a nasty bunch.”
“Well, if you like that job opportunity and decide to take it, don’t tell them where you’re going. Tell them you’re going back to Ohio to your old house and a new job you’ve been offered. Then help Euna slip off later to come join you. She can send them one of those texts after you’re married, telling them she’s in Ohio and married. Your house up there is probably still on the internet in your daddy’s name right now if they hunted for an address. Besides even if they check on things, I can’t quite see that bunch taking off to travel all the way to Ohio to look for either of you.”
Ancil couldn’t help smiling over that idea. “Neither can I.”
His uncle laughed. “I like thinking on this idea. It would keep you and Euna around close so I could see you both every now and then. I come to Cosby to get together with Wrylin right often. From what he says you’ll be just down the road a ways from his church and where he lives. It’s pretty country over there in Cosby. You’d get to work with plants like you love. I don’t think I could make a barber out of you, nor would it be happy for you and Euna to live around here. Her family and those Wilnotys would probably shun you and make trouble for you. I doubt you’d know any real peace.”
The yellow dog got up from the porch to wander over to get his head scratched by his uncle while Ancil thought over all his words.
“So, will you check it out?” his Uncle Charlie asked after a while. “Like the old saying, ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained.’ I’ve always believed that nothing will change in your life if you’re not open for change.”
“What if my leaving causes more trouble for you?”
“I wouldn’t be lying to anyone to say you’d only come to stay a while to help me out when I got injured. Everyone has long expected you to leave and head back home after a while. You can be sure I won’t be telling that bunch over in Cherokee, or anyone else, that you decided to stay around the mountains rather than going back to Ohio. Most folks will assume you did go back to Ohio. You’d be smart to give that reason for quitting your job over at the garden center, too. I won’t have need to dispute it. With you gone they won’t have need to bother me, either. It’s what they wanted me to do, to help get rid of you. They’ll probably figure I pushed on you to leave.”
Ancil thought on his words for a little while and then picked up the piece of paper with the phone number on it, glancing at his watch. “I think I might go over to Cosby tomorrow for the day to look around, You wanna go with me?”
“Nah, I got appointments all day for haircuts at the shop. But you go. You’re off work.” He leaned over to pat Ancil’s shoulder. “You can tell me all about it when you get back.”
October that year brought quiet to the Wildflower Haven nursery. One evening as the twilight settled in shortly after dinner, Euna came out on the porch of their cabin in Cosby with a little cake twinkling with lit candles.
Ancil looked up and smiled at her. “What’s the occasion?”
She sat the cake down on the rustic table in front of him and then settled into her favorite rocking chair beside his. “It’s our six-month wedding anniversary. I decided we should celebrate it and give thanks to the good Lord for our lives.” She took his hand. “Come blow the candles out with me and we’ll wish for many more blessed years.”
They did, and then Ancil leaned over to kiss her. “Are you happy, Euna?”
“Do you need to ask?” She smiled at him. “You gave me a new life of peace and happiness and saved me from sorrows. I worried for a time if our love would be enough for you in balance against all the injustice and cruelty of my family.”
He considered her words as he watched her cut them both a piece of the cake she’d made, a rich carrot cake with cream cheese icing like she knew he loved. “Do you miss your family?”
She sighed. “I miss the idea of family, the love and caring of what family should be, but not the reality of what my family had become, caring more for traditions, for money and land, than people, for turning blind eyes to my heart, my needs, and even my gifts, wanting only to control my life and willing to hurt me and others to do it.”
Ancil ate a little of his cake before answering. “I remember being worried that day six months ago before we married and you joined me here. You had good reason to go to Sylva to spend the weekend to help your friend Indica be married, but I was anxious all day that you would return home and not come here to me, that time had changed your mind, or that someone would learn of our plans or see you packing your possessions into your car and stop you.”
“You leaving without me threw everyone’s thinking off. They even jeered at me, being dumped by you, suggesting I’d been foolish and hoping I saw more clearly now my right path.” She paused to eat a bite of her cake. “You quit your job with my family and left shortly after your interview with the Mertons. You said you liked them and loved all you saw here at first sight. I could feel that excitement and certainty in you later when you shared about it and proposed to me, and you showed me all those pictures you’d taken, one of the cabin here.”
“We’ve fixed it up nicely, I think. It is well-built and comfortable.”
“It is, and I was happy here from the first night.” She blushed at those words.
“I watched for you all day, fearful you would not come.”
She grinned. “I had been stealthy over the weeks after you left, carefully packing things I’d need here, even sneaking boxes to your uncle to ship to you. I had little to take as I left for Sylva for Indica’s wedding.”
“Did you tell her your plans, that you would drive over the mountain to me instead of returning home?”
“No, I didn’t think it wise. As we planned, I communicated later to all that I went to Ohio to marry you and live there. No one knows I am here in Cosby.” She sighed. “It might create problems if we ever returned to Cherokee, Ancil. Property passes through the matriarchal line in Cherokee. I am the oldest daughter. In a sense, I have rights there to land and even the family business on the land. Your uncle says he’s learned my sister got pregnant by Jase. She is underage, but the family is giving their permission for them to marry. They go on, and we will go on.”
He smiled at her. “Our life is good here. I am a happy man with you, with my work, and with our home. I am saving and in time we will buy our own place.”
She paused, the sound of the creek through the woods coming to them and the sounds of early night frogs beginning. “I like our plaque on the wall with its Cherokee blessing.” She began to read it. “May the warm wings of heaven blow softly upon your house, and may the Great Spirit bless all who enter here.” She paused. “There is more but I like those words and hope blessings will continue to follow us.”
“Yes, I do, too,” he agreed. “Sometimes we must walk on, away from troubles and sorrows, in order to find our peace and the life God wants for us.”
“That is true. Sometimes we need a change for peace and for new joy.”
A drift of warm wind blew through the porch as she spoke as if confirming her words.
In my upcoming book WILDFLOWER HAVEN, you will meet Ancil and Euna Yarbrough again as side characters and can catch up on their lives after many years have passed. For my February blog, I enjoyed creating a little story about the earlier years of this Cherokee couple.
Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS TREE 
A blog is a regularly updated, informational internet site, or platform, written in an informal or conversational style by a group of different people, a business, or a single individual, in a series of entertaining blog posts. An individual’s blog can be a website of its own or a part of a website, as mine is a part of my author’s website at 
For authors, like myself, blogs are often a way to stay in touch with their readers, offering thoughts, updates, and information about their books, writing, and their lives – like the beginning of this June 2023 blog about a visit to a botanical garden. Blogs are a nice way to build social relations and friendships with your readers. Each author blog post is optimally about 1,500 to 2,500 words in length, longer than an author newsletter, but a post can be much shorter, too. Usually, authors soon begin to develop a post length their readers come to expect. Each blogger has to discover their own ideal length, just as they learn their best book length. It is generally expected that an author create a blog post or entry consistently, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly.
For me, each of my blogs is like an article, talk, or short writing that I gift to my readers free every month. I always put up my new Monthly Blog Post at the first of every month, usually on the first day of the month. On the same day, I post my monthly Newsletter, too, which focuses on upcoming events, books, and projects I’m working on at the time. Many authors make their blog and newsletter available only to those who “subscribe” to them through an email link. Usually this is found in a pop-up link on their website, … annoyingly popping up often and intrusively.
My first novel published in 2009 … and as more and more books came out, and interest in my writing grew, my publisher encouraged me to start a Blog and a Newsletter. Still teaching college at the time and writing two books a year, I wasn’t eager to take on another commitment. However, as 2016 ended, I decided I could commit to write a blog and a newsletter every month. So my Blog debuted monthly in January 2017. I’ve been at it for eight years now. If readers get behind on my blog posts or just discover my books and start following me, all eight years of my Blog Posts are archived. For example, to see the latest ones before this one, just scroll down the page after you finish reading this post.
Just like planning and writing a book takes time, planning and writing a blog post takes time, too. I usually spend at least a full day creating a blog post and finding the photos I use in each for illustration. America reads less and less today, scrolling mindlessly through social media without stopping to read more than a paragraph, so sometimes being a blogger is disappointing. However, when I check my International Stats and see that fans and readers in over fifty countries are popping in to read my blog and avidly following it, I am encouraged.
Many of my fans in the U.S, who devotedly read my books, have never even discovered my blog and newsletter. I can only assume that’s because they seldom go to my website. It’s unbelievably easy to find at: 
My blogs are all archived and you’ll see an ARCHIVE search box to the right of every month. In that Archive, if you click the arrow to the right of “Select Month” you’ll see links for my eight years of blogging. You can doodle down through the past years to see what you might find. In looking back today at my first posts in 2017 … one early February 2017 post was about “Hiking in the Smokies” and our hiking guide THE AFTERNOON HIKER. Others were about visits to Bryson City, NC, where my 2017 book DADDY’S GIRL was set and about our book launch and signing events..
For June of 2017, I wrote about one of my hobbies in a post called the “Sunday Painter” and posted a few photos of my watercolor paintings. Readers seemed to like that personal touch, so in July I wrote about “The Joys of Home” and talked about our home. In August 2017, I blogged about “Growing Up with Flowers,” and in April 2018 about “Wildflowers in the Smokies.” In September of 2017, after our summer beach vacation, my blog post was called “Remembering Edisto.” Others that first year jumped around to different topics, like November about “Fall in East Tennessee” with glorious photos and in December “The Christmas Tree” remembering trees in our family over the years.
You can see from this discussion, that my blog posts are diverse, none ever the same. Sometimes I talk about books I’m writing or have just finished, giving you little inside tips and photos I collected to represent the characters and places in my stories. Many posts in 2018 and in the years since were about travels to beautiful parks and places we visited while working on our four parks guidebooks. I shared about the “Things I Collect” in September 2018, “The Art of Embroidery” the next month, “Games I’ve Loved” in June 2020. Other posts celebrate local places, like “Why I Love Knoxville” in April 2021, “The Beautiful Tennessee River” in May 2021, and “History of the Smokies” in June 2022.
Before 2018 began, my editor suggested, since the last of my twelve Smoky Mountain books would be published that year, that I dedicate one month all year to my twelve novels … so all of 2019’s blogs follow my first twelve books from THE FOSTER GIRLS to THE INTERLUDE. I think you’d enjoy these posts, telling how I got the ideas for these books, with photos and lots of inside facts. If you’re interested in the process of how I write my books, you might like my January 2018 post “Creating a Book” or February 2020 “How I Write.”
As I cruised through my old blog posts today to write this, I laughed over many of my posts and smiled over others. I loved remembering favorite books I loved in October 2020 in “The Armchair Traveler” and “Books About Remarkable Women” the next month in November, making me want to reread some of the titles I talked about again! Sometimes I got lyrical and inspirational with my posts, like in January 2022 in “New Year Inspirations” and in March 2023 titled “Life is Full of Opportunities.” Life is ever full of opportunities… and you have the opportunity any time you get bored or trapped inside during bad weather or illness to explore your way through my eight years of blogs to read whichever ones you might enjoy. When people say to me, “I wish you wrote more books every year” my answer now is often, “Read My Blog Posts in between.” I write something fun and free for you to read every single month. Never undervalue what is freely given.
…OBSERVE the beauty all around you and really notice the changes in nature this month. Depending on where you live, the weather will grow cooler and crisper, and the leaves, here and there, will begin to turn color to their autumn splendor. If you will slow down and stop to notice it, nature can do wonders for your mood, lifting your spirits and reminding you that there is still so much beauty in the world to enjoy. “Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.” [Laura Ingalls Wilder] …”A walk in nature walks the soul back home” [Mary Davis]
… CALL and catch up with someone you love but haven’t talked to in some time. It’s always sweet to hear an old familiar voice of a relative or friend you once shared lovely seasons of your life with. In this busy world today where we’re often more impersonal on social media or via texting, it’s a delight to sit down in a comfortable chair in a quiet corner and just talk and laugh with someone on the phone. “Time is everlasting, but people aren’t. Keep in touch with people you love” [anonymous] “You can’t go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending” [C.S. Lewis]
…TRAVEL more and become an adventurer. Plan a trip, small or large, and go somewhere you’ve never been before. Be bold. Decide on some place you’d love to see or visit,… an interesting city, a state park, a quaint resort town. It can be in state, out of state, or out of country. Then research about it on the internet. Pick up books about it at the library. Get maps and brochures from a visitor center. They are lovely to mail them to you. And make your plan. Break out of the ordinary and do and see something new. “Travel brings power and love back into your life” [Rumi]. “Adventure is always worthwhile” [Aesop].
… OPEN your eyes to new opportunities this month. Get out of your comfortable and familiar patterns. Consider trying a new activity… take a class, join a club, become a volunteer, discover a new hobby, get creative with an art or craft. Find a way to use your talents. Discover a way to be a blessing. Get involved in a worthwhile effort. Don’t wait for someone else to suggest something fresh and new you can try. Step out on your own. “Opportunities don’t happen, you create them” [Chris Grosser] “Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect” [Alan Cohen].
…BARGAIN shop more, be frugal, and spend less. People spend too much money today. They buy more than they need and struggle to make ends meet. Inflation is a factor but experts say its more about poor budgeting and money management skills—not shopping wisely, over spending, and being unwilling to make do with less. Bargain and thrift shopping can save a lot of money and be fun. But truthfully, we need to stay out of debt and “Stop spending money we don’t have” [Paul Ryan]. As Will Rogers said in humor: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.”
…ENCOURAGE someone who needs it and encourage yourself, too. The world is full of critics and hatefulness today, and people are hungry for a kind and encouraging word. Be the person that smiles at strangers, that grins at your friends and makes them laugh, that tells someone with sincerity, “You’re talented. You’re smart. I know you can do it.” We could all use someone who looks for the best in us and sees the good in us, instead of the worst. “Always be generous with your encouraging words; you may find they will inspire others to be the best they can be” [Catherine Pulsifer] “It’s amazing what a little encouragement can do.” [Winnie Harlow].
…READ more. Renew your mind, recharge old knowledge you’ve forgotten. Purpose to read and learn new things every day. Strengthen your mind and the wisdom you carry. An old quote says “The moment you stop learning is the moment you start dying.” That fact is certainly true for your brain cells. They die out from disuse. If you want to stay mentally strong and powerful, read and educate yourself for all your life. Countries and its people stay strong through reading and continuing learning. “The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we continue to live” {Mortimer Adler] “Read to learn and read for joy” [anonymous].
On September 15th our new guidebook, TRAVELING GEORGIA PARKS, publishes. This is our fifth travel guide, including our Smokies hiking guide and it is our fourth state parks guidebook. Our first, DISCOVERING TENNESSEE STATE PARKS, started our journey of visiting state parks. We learned with that book there was no book about all of Tennessee’s parks written by someone who had visited them, only fill-in journal books or books highlighting a few parks with other content. So, we set out to visit in person every park in Tennessee so we could tell readers about all the fun things to do and see in each park in the state and we included photos from every visit, putting over 700 color photos in our book, too. The book was so successful that we began to get requests to create guidebooks for other states. This resulted in lots of lovely travels around the southeast visiting parks to create EXPLORING SOUTH CAROLINA STATE PARKS and VISITING NORTH CAROLINA STATE PARKS, and then last summer between May and the end of September we traveled all over Georgia to 66 state parks and historic sites for our new Georgia parks’ guidebook.
So many of our parks throughout America would not be here at all if it weren’t for the vision and work of President Franklin D. Roosevelt for establishing them, and we had a little chance to thank him for that when we visited the F.D. Roosevelt and Warms Springs parks near his Georgia home and found his lifelike statue at Dowdell Knob.
COASTAL GEORGIA covers the region from Savannah down to St. Mary’s near the Florida border and east across part of the southern region of the state. For this area, with the multitude of parks along or near the Atlantic Coast of the state, we rented a condo for a week in early May at St. Simons Island, Georgia, and used that point as home base for our park visits. The first park we visited was Crooked River State Park in St. Mary’s, along a tidal river leading out to the sea, and then we drove back into Florida’s 402,000-acre Okefenokee Swamp to the Stephen S. Foster Park. As you see from the photos, the park was tucked along lake and marshlands with boardwalk trails leading through cypress trees growing out of the water, with rich wildlife, birds, and alligators. Visitors can take boat tours into the swamp, stay at the park’s campgrounds or cabins and visit other areas around this ecologically diverse area. Each day after was a continual adventure as we visited at least two parks a day up the coast or inland, exploring beautiful parks like Skidaway Island State Park, Fort McAllister State Park, and a multitude of historic sites like the Reynolds Mansion on Sapelo Island, Fort Morris and Fort King George.
MIDLANDS GEORGIA spreads above the coastal region, reaching back into the heart of Georgia. There are less parks here, all more spread out, and we had a chance to travel parts of Georgia we’d never seen, often past miles and miles and miles of pine tree forests. We now know where all the telephone poles of the south come from!! In this region we discovered broad, beautiful parks tucked around scenic lakes like Jack Hill, Little Ocmulgee, and Magnolia Springs built around a historic springs that has bubbled up clear waters from below the earth for thousands of years. A favorite park here was General Coffee State Park because of its diversity. It offered campgrounds, cottages, hiking, an idyllic lake, as well as boardwalks leading back into a cypress swamp and a wonderful Heritage Farm, full of historic log cabins, barns, and farm animals.
THE SOUTHWEST REGION we visited in summer took us across the state to visit parks from Georgia’s border with Florida, like Seminole State Park, to lovely parks along Lake Eufala on the Alabama border like the George T. Bagby and Florence Marina parks to inland treasures like the huge Georgia Veterans State Park and Resort. Further north we visited parks like the F.D. Roosevelt State Park tucked in the mountains near Callaway Resort, where J.L. and I spent our honeymoon. A favorite park in this region, and certainly an unexpected one, was Providence Canyon. We felt like we were visiting the Grand Canyon out west and this unique park is called the Grand Canyon of the South and is one of Georgia’s Seven Wonders. So don’t miss visiting this one!
The NORTH MOUNTAINS region lies in the northwest section of the state, bordering Alabama and Tennessee, and it holds a large number of parks with a wide diversity. We visited parks near Atlanta like Sweetwater Creek, Chattahoochie Bend, and Red Top Mountain and others further north like James H. Floyd and the stunning Cloudland Canyon State Park with its fabulous views. A favorite mountain park we had never visited before was Fort Mountain State Park high in the Cohutta Mountains near Chatsworth. It covers over 4000 acres and offers lakeside pleasures, a fine campground, scenic overlooks, and some especially interesting hiking trails rising to excellent views.
Throughout our parks’ regions, we visited many interesting historic sites, learning so much about American history, Georgia’s own history, and about famous men and women and their accomplishments we hadn’t learned of before. I do hope that as you visit around Georgia, or in the parks in other states, that you’ll take time to see the many sites where the states work hard to preserve our history. One site we especially enjoyed visiting in the North Mountains area was the New Echota State Historic Site in Calhoun, Georgia, easy to get to from I-75 South. New Echota served as the capital of the Cherokee Nation from 1825 to 1838 and visitors can learn so much about Cherokee history here at the museum and in walking around the grounds of the original and reconstructed buildings that held significance to the Cherokee people.
Georgia’s PIEDMONT REGION, somewhat like the Midlands Region, stretches across a middle area of Georgia from the South Carolina border to areas south of Atlanta. We visited lovely Mistletoe State Park, Hard Labor Creek State Park, and a wide variety of historic parks. Two favorites were Indian Springs State Park and High Falls State Park. Indian Springs was one of the state’s first parks, established around an old natural spring beloved first by the Indians and then by visitors in the Gilded Age. You can visit the spring house, learn about this park’s rich history, and enjoy its fine lake, campgrounds, cottages, and rich amenities. High Falls State Park is only fifteen minutes away, with the highest waterfall south of Georgia, so it is easy to visit both parks in a day.
The last Georgia parks region we visited, the BLUE RIDGE REGION took us closer to our home and the familiarity of the mountains. The Blue Ridge Region has more parks than any Georgia state region and it took us two different week-long trips to visit and explore them all. Some of the parks lay near the midlands region like Fort Yargo, Don Carter, and Victoria Bryant while others nestled along South Carolina’s border or near the Tennessee and North Carolina borders. We loved the parks in this area, enjoying visiting Tallulah Gorge State Park again, Black Rock Mountain and Unicoi. Visits took us to many historic sites, too, like to the Dahlonega Gold Museum and Hardman Farm. A special favorite was our visit to Amicalola Falls State Park with its incredible 729-foot waterfall, glorious views and overlooks. The park has a new visitor center rich with displays, and the rock entrance to the Appalachian Trail Advance behind the center, where many begin the long hike 2100.9 miles of the Appalachian Trails from Georgia to Maine, is a popular spot for photos.
For every park in our Georgia guidebook, we provide clear directions to get to each park, a description of all the interesting and diverse things to do and see in every park, plus we often include a History Note when appropriate to add to your understanding about the history of that particular park, along with our photos. …. I hope you’ll order one of our new Georgia parks books and plan some visits to the state’s diverse variety of parks soon. You can purchase our other guidebooks, as well, through your favorite retailers in-store or online to the states of Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina for more park adventures. J.L. and I hope you’ll enjoy your parks visits to Georgia as much as we did … and if you enjoy these guidebooks, please pop over to Barnes & Noble or Amazon to leave a review and consider buying some extra copies for Christmas gifts.
Lin Stepp 