Another beautiful morning in the Smokies and we have a busy day planned. On Saturday we bicycled the loop road in the isolated valley tucked in the mountains called Cades Cove. There isolated structures remain of a remote agricultural community that developed in the mid 1800’s and was purchased by the National Park Service in the 1930’s. Many of the structures that remain are primitive of log and rough-cut lumber. They provide a glimpse of the heartier life of earlier times, and strangely the simple rectangular structures are pleasing to view even if they are tiny and “unfinished” by today’s standards. Yesterday we hiked with friends to a wonderful perch called the Pinnacle which overlooks the town of Sylva and looks up to the Great Balsam, Plott Balsam, Nantahala, and Great Smoky Mountain Ranges. There at 5,000 feet the oaks are just leafing out and the mountain laurel is in bud. In the valley the laurel is now in bloom and the domestic rhododendrons in front yards are beginning to fade. Today we drive back to Sylva where Anne will rent a sewing machine to assemble a quilt and Chuck will shop and launder clothes. Tonight he will grill burgers for a traditional Memorial Day picnic. We will have two or three guests. The weather should be great. The temperature may reach a blazing 80 degrees. Tomorrow Anne will work at the Cherokee clinic. She has found the work refreshing and exciting. Allowed a bit more time for each patient because the patients here often have more complicated problems than those she saw in private practice, she enjoys the challenges and rewards of medical practice. Still the work is demanding and its temporary nature makes it more enjoyable. Meanwhile Chuck is being a househusband. The tribal tourist agent has yet to get back to him and he assumes that the opportunity to work up a birding program is fading. That is too bad because the Qualla Boundary is a wonderful birding location. He most regrets not being able to inform the appropriate managers of the wonderful community of birds on the Kituwah Mound farm made possible unconsciously by informal farming. Now it is critical that conservation management be formalized to preserve the lovely “country farm” and its birds. We look forward to visits by our children. The canoe is ready for action and now that the weather is warming we may get out on the Tuckaseegee River ourselves. We are also planning our adventures for the end of summer. We have outlined our Appalachian Trail hiking in Maine and New Hampshire. We will be there in August. We hope to visit at Cape Cod at the end of that month. After Labor Day we will hike Vermont and New Hampshire with our neighbors and perhaps New York and Connecticut at the end of September and early October. After that no plans yet. So be it. Now we tidy up the motorhome and listen to the “Weekend Edition.” Anne, still the romantic cried a bit when a commentator reported on the Normandy Cemetery which we visited in January where The United States Memorial Commission has created a fitting monument to our fallen warriors in Europe and everywhere in place and time. We are, for better and for worse, the nation of the citizen soldier. Today we give tribute to the suffering of war. It is a holiday that finds joy only in reflection on sadness. It is a day to be sober of what war is and why the greatest honor is in its prevention, a skill that has not yet been mastered. We remain in a martial age. We wonder if we will live to see a time beyond the age of governmental murder.