Curious and curiouser

These two seem very interested in whatever was happening below. I had some seen in some flower pots on the deck so maybe they were watching birds down there. I don't recall. I took this picture 5 days ago while getting ready for work.

hiking trail

I took this picture from a hiking trail off of the Blue Ridge Highway in NC. I'm very glad I didn't have to make that entire climb by foot. Just look at how those trees on the right fall off. That's very steep terrain. It's so hard to imagine the settlers back in the 1800s traversing these mountains on foot and, god forbid, with wagons. I went up the Cumberland Gap a few years ago and the entire time I was driving up I was thinking about that. Yikes.

Epiphyte

Here's an air plant I noticed in a very old tree in the mountains north of Asheville a few weeks ago. You can see the lichen growing all over the branches--this tree looked very unhealthy! There were two trees like this growing next to one another. This one had small yellow fruits and the other had small red fruits. I don't know what type of tree it is tho.

Misty Stump

I took this picture while kayaking early one morning in SC. It was late October and the temperatures had just turned cold. The change in weather helped cause a great deal of mist that even endured a while after the sun came up.

Hiking Trail

A hiking trail 20 miles north of Asheville, NC in late October. Despite a very dry summer, fall colors were abundant at higher elevations. Out of the mountains it was a different story with the trees having dull plumage at best.