Jakes Creek, Elkmont Elkmont was once a community of summer houses for wealthy citizens of Knoxville and Chattanooga.  When the area became part of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the park service left the houses in place and over the years they were gradually overrun by the forest. You can hike through this area and see what will happen to human settlements after we have been gone for a few years. For a couple of weeks each year, Elkmont is also the only place in North America where you can observe the displays of a species of synchronous fireflies.  You can walk through the darkness into the forest and sit among the ruins of these houses while fireflies light up all around you in synchronized bursts and waves that run around the trees and flow up and down the hills.  Even if you are with your friends, the people who have become your family, the conversations quickly die out and everyone is quiet.  Eventually, even the chatter in your head will fade away and without a drink or a drag or a drop of anything you will float outside yourself, because it is so fucking perfect.

Jakes Creek, Elkmont

Elkmont was once a community of summer houses for wealthy citizens of Knoxville and Chattanooga.  When the area became part of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the park service left the houses in place and over the years they were gradually overrun by the forest. You can hike through this area and see what will happen to human settlements after we have been gone for a few years.

For a couple of weeks each year, Elkmont is also the only place in North America where you can observe the displays of a species of synchronous fireflies.  You can walk through the darkness into the forest and sit among the ruins of these houses while fireflies light up all around you in synchronized bursts and waves that run around the trees and flow up and down the hills.  Even if you are with your friends, the people who have become your family, the conversations quickly die out and everyone is quiet.  Eventually, even the chatter in your head will fade away and without a drink or a drag or a drop of anything you will float outside yourself, because it is so fucking perfect.

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