Okay, let's not have any mystery in the title. The fact is, we were late is reserving a log house for that weekend... so, we got what was left unreserved a week before our trip. The place was Sevierville (which is like a few towns away from the actual Smoky Mountains (Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg then Smokies!) where we got a three storied house reserved for the weekend. And, by "we" I mean:
Neelabh, Anamitra, Vikas, Ekram, Ajit, Deepika, Abir, Agniswar and a guitar
(and a lot of supplies to last us for the weekend)
The idea of making a trip to the Smoky Mountains was brewing for quit sometime now, but it never got the complete heat, till before the first week of July when there was an isspaar ya usspaar "meeting" and the order was passed - We are going to the Smokies next weekend. Neelabh and Agni arranged everything and we were off on the evening of July 5, 2013. The Smokies are more famous for their colour in the fall season. But fall seems too far away for my patience, I would rather be more excited to see how the mountains got their name. It was before sunset, when we seem to be getting close. 
After an ordeal of finding our log house (at night in light-less place among only hundreds of similar log houses), we were finally inside Scenic Sunrise - the log house reserved for us. And after an understanding of who will sleep where, somehow people landed themselves in the task of making egg-rolls (not the Chinese kind, but the Kolkata kind) and Paneer Rolls. The rest of the night was about either playing pool or simply relaxing in the Jacuzzi (oh ya!). But even later that night, it was about simply sitting in the wooden balcony and... well, and nothing. Agni, Abir, Ajit, Neelabh and I. There were smokes and jokes, sharing and blaring but in the midst of all these nobody missed a moment of the moon setting itself out for that night. And when the moon was out, there was day break.
There is a magical element about the rising sun over the mountains. Every moment makes you feel that you were not present in the previous moment and every photograph you take the previous moment is nothing in comparison to what you are looking at now. It was frustrating, yet hypnotic. Once I had heard a line in a movie - "Those who have seen the sunrise from the top of a mountain have either become poets or madmen or have become very wise". But I guess, since it was just a movie, I remained unharmed (or, so I thought!).
When it was a proper morning, the entity of "sleep" was frustrated with me and decided not to show up in my eyes any more. So, with nothing else to do, I went out. And what a beautiful morning it was! After a complete sleepless night, when you go out in your night shorts and with a camera, you get a feeling that you just discovered the hidden morning and you deserve the full credit for the discovery. A total nonsense theory, but I gave myself a break and basked in its feeling for sometime. Like the way too much fiction is harmful, too much whatever-that-feeling-was was harmful to me. It was drizzling, the slopes were slippery, there was a perfectly semi circular rainbow on the west horizon and that was when Maa called. I was so much mumbling on the phone (trying to protect my camera and the phone from the rain while walking down the slope), that she thought I was actually high! I had to convince her that I was high, true, but not on what she was suspecting.
People were waking up gradually while Vikas and I decided to take another round of Jacuzzi that morning. The water last night was beyond a temperature which could cook a person soft if kept there for a long long time. By the morning, it was better. After drying off, what I noticed that everyone had that air of a perfect relaxation around them. A holiday, not too much excitement, but with just the correct amount of distance from home and only the necessary amounts of movement demanded by the relaxing job of playing some pool, counting photos taken so far, sleeping and sleeping some more.
The afternoon was about cooking and singing and video recording of the
songs. The more I looked outside, the more easily I was getting convinced why it is called - The Smoky
Mountains. My reasons to come to this place were not completely unreasonable. It did offer me what I had in mind.
There was seriously nothing much for us to do other than looking outside the balcony in the three available directions. But in a strange way, I never got tired of it. The sights outside had so much variation. It seemed like the correct decision on my part to have come here in the monsoon season or else I would have missed how dreamy suspended water particles can make a place. I will go out of my way and say this here - at a setting like this, lot of memories come rushing back in your consciousness. Some happy ones, some, not-so-happy ones and some that were never real in the first place.
After an afternoon walk by the entire party (where my camera battery was out of anymore power) which resulted in many photo shoots, it was dark and the cooking spree was upon us, again. Grill chicken and paneer for starters (with some Bud Lights), then fried rice, then egg and mutton kasha! (Needless to say, who was the mother hen in the kitchen, but definitely not in a fussy way!!) And those Bud Lights did it to me what they had to do. Abir took charge of the guitar and with some help from Agni, sitting in the balcony, some regrets, some accomplishments came back along with a few from the old black T-shirt Bangla Band days of college.
While leaving the cabin, a plan for zip lining was already hatched. We went to the zip lining place and for the first time Ajit, Anamitra, Deepika, Ekram and I were paying to travel on a pulley rolling on a pair of metal cables hanging about hundred of feet above the ground. For Abir, it was the second time! And a time it was. One of those which give you a rush in your adrenaline. The tops of the mountains were covered with fog and you could barely see the end of the cable. In the first couple of seconds of your hanging travel, you hold all your muscles tightly. But once the sight of tree tops below your feet stop scaring you and start giving you a sense of flight, you simply relax and enjoy the ride (and may be start smiling and talking to yourself)
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| [Image ABSOLUTELY NOT clicked by the author] |
... But, the best part is yet to come! While zip lining, it was (wait-for-it)...Raining! Just imagine, you are traveling on hanging cables, you cannot see the other end of the cable and it is raining on your face. The physical thrill in this condition when you travel through the woods, over the woods, over a few canals with your legs hanging in the air all the time... you can totally justify the high pitch sound of Wooooo... Woohooo!!! (something close to what Jack sounded like on the open deck of Titanic). Unfortunately it had started to thunder and the two trainers with us decided to stop with one more cable to go or else chances were I might have started as a human from one side and made it to the other side looking like a roasted over grown turkey. More unfortunately, there is no photograph of our crazy faces while gliding on the cables.
Once we were back to ground, the cold left over grilled chicken did perfectly well with the pouring rain all around the shade. Dried and refueled, the party started for Lexington. There is another little episode later that day which features a place only 35 miles away from Lexington, a span of 3 and a half hours, and viewing of the same Sherlock episode on the phone, twice. But more of it later.
Well... if someday I get a chance, I would like to post something with the same title but without any "almost" in it...
Well, as usual was nice to share that weekend with you! :)
Till next time,
Cheers!
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