The Smokies

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I visited the Great Smoky Mountains National park in winter break two years ago, en route to Florida. It was an amazing place, saturated with breathtaking natural beauty. The stream of mountains and trees with leaves of various hues were filled with life, like they were the very veins of the earth, a small area of land untouched by the plague of industrialization. The pinks, yellows and blues of the blossoms; the reds, oranges and browns of the leaves; the green pine trees, all against a background of a white blanket of snow, made the place seem like a painting, a visualization, something that only happens in movies - but it was real, and it was, at some point, what the entire continent looked like before the year of 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Currently, the paradise on earth is protected by the government. Soon, though, it too will be destroyed, used to make 293.4 square miles more of houses, schools, malls, corporate offices, factories....and no one will remember or care about the beauty that the place was once home to.

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