#Project365: Special Edition - Gatlinburg part 4

Today's edition displays a portion of the downtown area close to the main street through town, US 441. One area that I did not go into was the ski area to the west of the city and high above the downtown portion of Gatlinburg. As I mentioned yesterday, I was affected very dramatically and moved to tears by what I was taking pictures of and knew from earlier stories in the news that a good portion of the entire area had been obliterated. This was as close as I got; one can see that the building at the top of the sky lift is gone.

Of COURSE I would have to get some shots of the chapels where so many marriages have taken place! This is a "before" shot:

Of the Gatlinburg Chapels that existed, only three remain:

Here is a "before" shot on the street the chapels face:

Here is what it looks like now:

Here's a closer shot of the hill in the above picture:

Here is a shot of the what's left of the Brevard Inn:

Here are more "before" (Google Maps shots) and "after" shots:

Here are the remains of what looks to be a house behind a mini-golf entertainment area just off the main drag; picture taken from Holly Ridge Road:

Had the two teenagers who started these fires not been playing with matches in Smoky Mountain National Park near the Chimney Tops Trail, it is possible that this destruction may not have happened. However, as climate change continues to accelerate (remember, climate change is exponential; not linear), these kinds of fires can be expected almost anywhere. All it takes is a lightning strike, drought, and high winds to cause a serious problem. 

#Project365: The Alaska Highway!

Wow, I finally made it to the Alaska Highway! I had carried this dream of traveling on the Alaska Highway, also known as the Alcan Highway, for a very long time. At first, I simply wanted to visit Alaska at some point. This came about in the 1990's probably around '94 or '95. Then, later, I watched a program about the building of the Alcan Highway and decided that "someday" I would travel it. The sheer distances involved required a minimum of about 3 weeks if one wanted to actually see much more than the highway itself (from Fort Wayne). I logged 11,300 miles on my journey; although I didn't stick to just the highway itself. I had put this trip off for many years simply because of the time requirements and the fact that I figured that Alaska would always be there and I could go whenever I wanted. I also had many other areas that I wanted to visit that were more convenient to get to. Alas, in 2015, wildfires destroyed millions of acres of forests not only in the lower contiguous states; but also many forests in Canada and Alaska. Combine this with the fact that Alaska, along with all other Arctic and Antarctic areas are changing faster than any other part of the world due to climate change; and I realized that time was running out to see Alaska as it is now. For anyone who really wants to see Alaska, now is the time to do it!

I realized that 3 weeks would be cutting it short and I also wanted to visit some friends along the way, so I finally settled on 5 weeks. HA! I probably could have spent 5 MONTHS and STILL not gotten to see everything I wanted, but that is a whole different story. This whole #Project365 story is actually about LIVING NOW and enjoying nature. We all put things off; but so many of us use the same type of logic (or should I say, lack thereof) to procrastinate things we really should not procrastinate.

So, without further ado; here are today's pictures! The first four are from a small waterfall named Rancheria Falls; and it has a boardwalk for most of the distance to the waterfall from the parking lot.

These next pictures were taken at Whitehorse, on the Yukon River, of the SS Klondike:

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The mighty Yukon River:

More tomorrow!