This has been an absolutely and gloriously lazy holiday. This may be the first break (fall, spring, Christmas or of any kind) in over a year that I've actually taken a break!

Today my parents and I took an excursion to the metropolis of Etowah, Tennessee. Actually the only proof of civilization there is a single street lined with antique shops and other quaint little places, such as the pink, black and white checkered Talk of the Town Ice Cream Parlor and the beautifully old and elaborately decorated Gym Theatre.

My favorite part about this place, however, is the landscape, for Etowah lies within the shadow of Starr Mountain: a ridge that exhales its cool air onto the town and echoes of a time when there was nothing but the mountains and the rocks and the water, when a native would go into the forest without the expectation of any one but the creaking trees and scurrying animals.

The sky was gray today as it drizzled mists of rain, and the fog glided in patches over the hillsides. A mystical and cathartic atmosphere permeates the Smoky Mountains on days like this one, and they are beautiful days to live in Tennessee.