We recently had the opportunity to get away for a few days. For generations folks from the mountains, like us, have traveled to the beaches of NC, SC, GA, and FL to vacation. Interestingly folks who live in in those coastal areas often choose to travel to the mountains of NC, TN, and GA to vacation.
Our days away from home were filled with sunshine, ocean waves, laughter, good food, and good fellowship, but by the end of the trip we were missing our mountains.
When I leave the mountains I’m always watchful on the return trip—trying hard to notice the instant I see the far blue mountains at the end of the horizon. Once I see them, I know home is tucked into one of the mountain hollers and that I’ll soon be back to the place I love so well.
On our recent trip home I was surprised and pleased when one of the girls said “Look momma do you see what I see? It’s our blue mountains and that means we’re getting close to home.”
The old song “Little White-Washed Chimney” by Bill Clifton sums up my feeling of wanting to return home no matter how fun it is being away for a spell. Visit this post to hear Pap and Paul’s version.
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
I think I know how your girls must have felt when returning home and seeing those distant mountains. As for me, I was born on a high ridge on the KY/TN border, grew up with mountains all around me, and now we live with a long ridge behind us. I always look for that ridge when we’ve been away for a while. It provides that warm feeling of belonging, possibly similar to what your daughters must have felt when you came back home. It must be a similar experience for those who live near the beach, returning to home and smelling the salty air long before actually arriving.
I love the picture at the top of the post. It’s reminds of my childhood home. Our house had such a view. Right from the winder. I used to sit and watch clouds and the cloud shadows move up the mountainside, over the ridge top and down into the valley beyond. Traveling miles over the rugged terrain with relative ease. Sometimes the clouds brought rain to someone who needed it and to those who did not. I could sit there and watch a thunderstorm in the distance and see the lightning but never heard the thunder. Sometimes the rain came my way, so I sat as it moved in it’s wavy sheets up the valley toward me. If I judged it right I could make a dash for the barn and never feel a drop. I would pull three or four bales of hay together and make a bed where I could lay and listen to the sweet lullaby of rain on a tin roof.
For the love of a woman I left all that behind. We vowed to return when things got better. We never made it. On March 25th, 2018 my wife left me and her body was given back the the ground from whence it came. She rests on a hillside flanked by mountains much like those portrayed in your picture and facing the Little Tennessee River. So now I am all alone with only memories of the treasures I have lost. Though my body has failed me my mind is still filled with clear pictures such as the one you have used to decorate my thoughts today. Thank You!
I get such an ache to see the mountains sometimes I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stand it. The last few times I was able to visit them I thought it would be the last time. So…maybe I’ll see them again someday.
Jenny-I sure hope you get to see them again!
I live in Columbia, SC. I had much rather go to the mountains than go to the beach. When we get close to the mountains we start looking for the blue of the mountains. It lifts my spirits to see them.
Dennis Morgan
There’s just something about Going (The Trip) that I enjoy.The excitment of seeing different places and things. After a few days though, I’m ready for my Foothills Home.Home is where the heart is,and that’s where I’m happiest.Pap and Paul sounded mighty good.
Not to offend anybody who lives near the ocean and beaches, but I will always choose my mountains. The seafood near the ocean is the exception because I love good seafood. It has been many years since I traveled to the beach, and frankly I was bored with the sand and sea of tanned bodies after a couple of days. When I take vacations I usually choose Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. I even love the carnival atmosphere that prevails in some areas. I just feel safe and at home surrounded by mountains. My baby sister loved the ocean and dreamed of a day when she could move near it. She died young, and I feel better knowing she had begun to appreciate the beauty of the mountain she grew up on.
Loved listening to your pap sing the tune. Thanks for sharing the link. It’s good to leave home and good to get back home wherever home may be.
I wish the NC mountains weren’t so far away .
I live in Wallace, in Duplin County in the eastern part of the state. I have been to there many times and love it!
Why are the people of the Kentuky mountains compared to NC mountains?
We had moved away from Oconee County, SC, to Anderson County after World War II, but my grandparents still lived above Walhalla, at the foothills of the Blue Ridge, on the Highlands Highway (SC 28). When going back to “the hills” to visit, we were always eager to reach the spot, just above Seneca, that the first good view of the mountains suddenly appears. Our family celebrated that view every trip because we missed our birthplace and because from there it wasn’t much farther “to Grandma’s house.” Grandpa lived there too, but we just always called it “Grandma’s house.” Oddly, my grandparents on both sides of the family owned the same property at different times. I still miss the hills and hill folks’ ways.
Gene I said in my earlier comment we would go to Oconee County about once a month. We would go to Oconee State PArk at Mountain Rest and camp for the weekend or me and daddy would go on one day trips and fish at the fish hatchery or Burrell Ford.
With plenty mountains where I have lived for thirty years, I still get homesick for the mountains where I grew up. When that happens, I go watch some You Tube videos that reminds me of their beauty and some bittersweet memories from my childhood. I can relate to the book “It’s Not My Mountain Anymore” by Barbara Woodall.
The mountains embrace us in the third dimension, and always give us bearings and let us know where we are. One lives ON the flatland, but IN the mountains.
Indeed there’s no place like home! I like a beach or even foreign soil, but my heart belongs in the hills! I’ve finally decided traveling stresses me out so I’m better off at the house where I have my comforts and there are no crazies to look out for. Lol
I agree wholeheartedly. These mountains are my home.
It’s good to go, in’t better to come home! I love the ocean but my heart is in the mountains where I feel cradled and protected!
I live in Greenville County, SC and you don’t have to drive very far before you can begin to see the blue of the mountains in the northern areas of SC. In the past I would go to the mountains of Oconee ,SC at least once a month from spring to fall. It was always a dream of mine to be able to live there in a log cabin type of home. It has been close to 20 years since I have been to the beach. As I got older I liked going off somewhere but at sundown I want to be home in my own bed.
I love those far blue mountains too. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world.