Aug. 23, 2013

Sitting Here in Limbo

Hello to everyone.  I hope you have good things in store this weekend.  I expect we'll be hopping busy this weekend with a good forecast in the works.

Thursday evening stuck to a pretty nice pattern of late, improving weather approaching sunset with clear enough skies to wink at the waning full moon.  Our high temperature was 65 with a low of 48 this morning.  We tallied just a trace of rain thanks to a faint sprinkle Thursday afternoon.  Fog and clouds have been the order for most of Friday.  However, we've gotten a few nice looks at the sun this afternoon. 

Unofficially, we just reached the 100-day mark left in the LeConte Lodge guest season.  We shut things down for the season and hike down the day before Thanksgiving.  With that in mind, I've compiled a short wish list for the remainder of the 2013 season, sort of a poor man's "Twelve Days of Christmas."

Here are just a few of the things on my list.
* A healthy string of llamas and llama wranglers.
* An autumn so beautiful songs are written about it.
* Visibility so expansive that I can look toward upper East Tennessee and gaze out toward Col. David Crockett's birthplace in Limestone and see where Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap.
* Continued strong souvenir sales, leading to an empty storage room.
* Hopes that the spring water continues to bubble along nicely the rest of the year and that we have plenty of solar power to pump it to the treatment tanks.
* I need to make more mint sweet tea.
* Hopes that all the crew members get their winter work, travel or rest in an order that pleases them.
* No October surprise like the three feet of snow we burrowed through following Hurricane Sandy last year (which in truth was nothing but a mere inconvenience compared to what our friends in New Jersey and New York suffered).  Still, carrying six dozen eggs across a sheet of ice isn't much fun unless you're an Olympic figure skater.
* Brilliant red mountain ash berries set against a blue sky.
* Good weather and clear skies for the Leonid Meteor Shower in November.
* The rescue litter collects dust an inch thick.
* Hopes that our guests the rest of the way will be as nice as our guests thus far.

Hope you have a trip to see us in the next 100 days.  Happy trails.