Fun With the Boys

 Our son, Kelly, is in graduate school at Duke and presently doing a project on Family Migration for one of his courses.  Part of his work involved a trip to the family homelands of Haywood County, so, with our being there this past week and weekend, a trip to meet us was planned.

Kelly, his brother, Doug, and Doug’s wife, Jill, met us at the SWAG for hiking the Cataloochee Divide Trail one more time.  This ancient trail runs between lands where ancestors lived on either side.  It was both a Highway for their travel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the trail along which early Methodist Circuit Riders traveled when our family became early Methodists.

We left the SWAG, which is at the mid-point of the trail, and hiked toward Cove Creek Gap.  The trail runs along the ridge here. We then visited the NPS Nature Education Center and the old John Ferguson Cabin.  (Many of our ancestors on both sides of the family are Fergusons.)

Returning along the ridge to the SWAG, we continued toward Hemphill Bald, passing two Cherokee trail marker trees on the way.  These trees were deliberately warped in early growth to make “signs” indicating upcoming intersections on the major trails.

While Doug and Jill went to the Bald, Trish and Kelly and I circled around on another old trail and back to the SWAG.  We all ended the day there with dinner after which I told a story to all of the SWAG guests.  It was a great day!