timxu

The park is quite beautiful. We spent pretty much the whole day driving up to its peak, then walking around its natural trails. Lots of walking and climbing (and falling) today, but it was pretty amazing. It also reminded me of what we can do to the beauty of nature, as a lot of the trees in the park were dead due to human-introduced bugs and acid rain from pollution. The dead, white, leafless trees stood as a gaunt and dramatic reminder of our sometimes terrible influences.

Most of those trees were along the trail to Clingmans Dome, which, at 6,643 feet, is the highest point in the park. It was a 17 mile drive into the park and a half mile hike uphill, but the view was fantastic. The mountains were blue, layered, and quite “smoky.” It was a great view, but again ruined by all those bleached, dead trees.

The dead trees ruin the view…

We then headed off to the Roaring Fork Nature Trail. We stopped a couple of times to check out the creek and went on one particularly long (1.5 mile) trail to see a 25-foot waterfall. Some of the scenery was truly breathtaking, but at the end of the day, it was just a lot of trees and greenery. There was really nothing to die for, which I guess was a little disappointing. Also, the wildlife was pretty much absent. There was a sign that said “Bears Active,” which got me excited; but alas, no bears interrupted our hike.

25′ Grotto Falls, off the Roaring Fork Motor Trail

But there were definitely a lot of waterfalls, small and large, and it was worth the rock-climbing and sore legs. Whitewater rafting (I think) tomorrow!

Well, after a 10 hour drive through six states (NJ, PA, MD, WV, VA, TN), I’m now in a Comfort Suites in Kodak, a couple miles from Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s the first leg of our trip – we’ll be hitting up Myrtle Beach, SC in a few days! The drive was uneventful, i guess. But once we got out of it in Tennessee, the heat hit. It was hot, humid, and windless. Awful weather.

I’ve noticed something about this area – there’s not a lot of minorities. We were the only Asians there, and there weren’t a lot of other minorities either. There were a lot of old people and blondes. The rumors are true: lots of tall, blonde girls in the South. Oh and the “Smoky Mountain Parkway” is ridiculous. There’s a strip that covers maybe a mile on which every single building is either a hotel, a restaurant, a mini-golf place, a go-kart place, or a miscellaneous carnival type place. We went go-karting on a hilly and bumpy course. It was lots of fun.

We’ll be heading into the park tomorrow. Pics will be posted.

Well, now that it’s officially summer, I figured it’d be a good time to start posting on the blog again. A lot has happened since I got back from Mexico three months ago; I guess I’ll give it a cursory overview.

April was a roller coaster of fun. I got close with a couple of good friends, and there was just a lot of hanging out. Freshman Olympics and Spring Fling were two fantastic days – the month went by faster than I wanted it to. But by the end of the month, finals had begun and I basically moved to Bass Library. I was in there at least 12 hours a day, if not more, but I did do well on my exams. All the hard work definitely saved my grade in quite a few classes. And just like that, in the proverbial blink of an eye, my freshman year at Yale was over. It’s been over a month since I left school, yet sometimes I still wonder where freshman year disappeared off to. It’s incredible that it’s over. I wish I could do it all again. But I won’t go on a nostalgic trip now; I’ll save that one for when I actually remember freshman year as a tangible block of time, rather than the blur it is now.

The latter half of May represented the beginning of my summer. Moving out was a pain and leaving Yale was tough, but it was definitely a great change of pace to go from constantly worrying and studying to having precisely zero responsibility. I started working on marketing my summer job (Ivy Insiders) right away, working with my Co-Manager Jon on getting the groundwork laid for our SAT classes. I’ve got about twenty days left before those classes are due to start. I guess that means I have twenty more days until my relaxation ends. By mid-July, I’ll be teaching classes almost daily.

I’ve also got some web-designing to do over summer break. I already finished one, for the Davenport Pops Orchestra, and I’ve got two more to design and code. I actually spent a few days learning how to code layout via <div> and CSS rather than <table>. It’s truly revolutionized (and modernized) the way I do webdesign, and I’m pretty excited to get started on the next two.

But besides all that work, I’m just relaxing at home, watching movies, playing video games, playing basketball and frisbee, and really enjoying home before I go back to school in just over two months.

It’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy.