West Tennessee - Like the Big South Fork of the Cumberland

Natchez Trace State Park,  Tennessee

The Natchez Trace State Park is in West Tennessee west of Nashville and East of Memphis.  The place has an awful history.  The land was ravaged resulting in deforestation of the land.  The area is similar to the area of the the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River.

The road system inside the Park is extensive and impressive.  The Park has multiple lakes.  There are forested areas now.  The quality of the forested areas is less than many sites.  Great areas are taken over by kudzu vines.

The Park has many quiet places.

From Butcher Hollow, Kentucky

Butcher Hollow Place (Hurricane Mills, Tennessee)

At Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, the Loretta Lynn Ranch offers visitors a chance to see the place where Loretta Lynn lived with her husband Doolittle.  On a hillside at the ranch there is a dwelling with a similar look to the Loretta Lynn home in the mountains of East Kentucky. Loretta Lynn's father Ted Webb was a coal miner in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky.  The Consolidation Coal Company operated from 1910 to 1946 in the Van Lear area.  The closest town is Paintsville, Kentucky.  There are many misconceptions about the rural areas of the country and about the rural areas of the mountains of East Kentucky.  To gain a proper understanding some patience and willingness to hear the narrative is necessary.

The Little River

   

National Park Service Literature for Little River Canyon

DeSoto State Park Dining Facility - Structure Formerly Used for Lodging - Built by the CCC

The Little River Canyon National Preserve is a part of the National Park Service lands.  The site works in partnership with the Alabama state park system. The park is within the Valley and Ridge province of northeastern Alabama, a part of the Appalachian-Alleghanian range.
The Little River Canyon Preserve has basal Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks of the Pottsville Formation. The lower portions of this unit contain massive, conglomeratic, quartz-rich sandstone, shale, coal, and mudstone beds.  Little River Canyon is incised through the Lookout Mountain syncline. This eroded broad syncline slopes gently towards the southwest and has approximately one thousand feet of topographic relief.   The Little River flows through the valley atop the Lookout Mountain area providing habitat for eastern plants and animals. 

The area was a place for nature viewing going back to at least the CCC days in the 1930s.  The banks of the valleys are alive with many plants especially mountain laurel and Catawba rhododendron.  Carnivorous pitcher plants are rare but can be seen in the forested areas.
 

American Eagle - Charlotte Douglas Airport - Canadair Regional Jet CRJ200ER

Canadair Regional Jet CRJ200ER

If you are flying American Eagle there is a good chance you will fly on one of these CRJ200ER aircraft this summer. This one was spotted at Charlotte Douglas in North Carolina.

With the engines being on fuselage pylons the CRJ200ER looks like a small scale DC-9.  The real DC-9s are missed by those who traveled the country in them.

American Airlines Lineup, Alaska Airlines Taxiing - Summer 2016

Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-990ER

This Boeing 737 was spotted at O Hare in Chicago.  The Alaska Airlines paint includes the words "Go Russell" on the fuselage.  The Boeing 737-990ER winglets have a "3" on the side.  What does this mean?

Russell Wilson is a quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks.  Russell Wilson wears number 3 for his games.

The 737 soldiers on well past the time when most travelers would have thought that  it would have disappeared from the modern airports.  Southwest Airlines only flies one airplane, the Boeing 737.  The 737 is still coming off the factory line in Washington State.

Being destroyed today

Wilbur McCauley - Untamed Mountain, Alabama

The great wilds of our country once held to be boundless and inexhaustible are being rapidly invaded and overrun in every direction, and everything destructible in them is
being destroyed. 

John Muir


Though much work has been done for the wilds it seems to be falling short.
This is Wilbur McCauley of the Untamed Mountain facility.  The facility is operated for native and exotic animals in need of secure permanent homes. As a wild animal preserve and rescue site the location is open to the community as an environmental education learning center and recreational destination for visitors.

He tells of the destruction of natural systems.  What he says lines up with the reports in reputable scientific publications.  The extractive industries are destroying nature.  The relative minority that defend what the extractive industries are doing are standing in the way of keeping nature working for the future of people and animals.

What I Saw - George Garvin Brown Garden

George Garvin Brown Garden

This photograph was taken of the George Garvin Brown Garden on Muhammad Ali Boulevard with the trees decorated with snow.

The Center for Interfaith Relations created the garden in Louisville.  The symbols built in the garden communicate spirituality, tolerance and the  faith traditions of many faiths. Moving water is central to the garden.  Two fountains symbolize themes of creation and reconciliation.  The walkways are granite arcs that symbolize the foundations of the sacredness in faith.  The completed garden has earned design awards from the Kentucky Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.

It is perhaps fitting that the garden is located along Muhammad Ali Boulevard.  Close by is Martin Luther King Jr. Park at Chestnut Street.  Perhaps Muhammad Ali carried some of Dr. King's message in life.  In the last thirty years of his life  Muhammad Ali sought to solve problems of conflict on many stages.  The garden continues on doing its work for making conflict less intense.