Ah, Bryson City, NC

  From the Tuckasegee River on an inner tube you can't really see the little unimposing office of the newspaper.  Don't really smell the freshly ground coffees.  Can't picture the latest round of homes for sale, quite the price range.  You scrape your knee or butt on a rock and proudly resolve to keep carrying on.

  The mix of man and mountain here....

  The uneven sidewalks kind of go with the territory.  If your head floats off in thoughts of gourmet cheese for Uncle Louie for Christmas or chichi scarves near Sasquatch tee-shirts, tripping over a tree root raised segment of sidewalk is sure to bring you back down to earth.  Been lost in a deep ravine and forging way from campsite to toilet shack in the shadow of ever taller mountains to climb?  Ground.

  Reality, locale, has a way of settling in on a place.

  Even before bankers' hours the Everett Street Diner's bteakfast smells waft through town the way clouds linger on postcard image of mountains to the edge of Bryson City.  Peoples' good mornings can be heard.  There is something inviting about doing business here.