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| Cabin in Cades Cove - click to enlarge |
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| Snowfall at Mike's old homeplace |
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| Girl on Chilhowee Mountain |
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| Bridge near Brisbane, Queensland |
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| Lonely Beach in Washington State |
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About the photographs - the top three photos were taken by Don White Walker, a professional portrait and wedding photographer - widely known throughout Eastern Tennessee. To see more of Don's work go to www.donwhitewalker.com
The next two photographs, starting from the left were taken by my brother, Stephen D. Thomson of Queensland, Australia. The photo on the far right of the second row is me on a lonely beach on the northwest coast of Washington state.
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The above photos can be enlarged by clicking on them. The photo on the left shows my wife Elizabeth and two engineer colleagues at the Russian Space Center in Kazakhstan. Elizabeth is on the right. The middle photo is the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Elizabeth and I were there last spring. The photo on the far right is a brilliantly flaming tree showing off its fall colors. This photo was taken less than a half mile from George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon.
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| Japanese Gardens, Portland, Oregon |
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| Mike and old friend, waterfront, Seattle |
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| Paris, Spring 2005 |
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The next four photographs beginning with the mountain scene above, have a story. The mountain scene is of the southern portion of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and surrounding area. In the lower portion of that scene is an area called Happy Valley or as it was once known, Rasar, Tennessee. Several members of my family - including my sister Maggie and my mother, Margaret Whitehead Thomson, live in that valley. What an isolated place to live you might think, particularly when one occasionally gets visited by bears like the one Maggie found snooping around her backyard recently. If you ever watched the movie "Cold Mountain" or better still, read the book, you would have become aware that at the end of the Civil War there was quite a bit of internecine conflict between mountain neighbors - much like Bosnia a few years ago. Towards the end of that conflict my family and several others who now live in Happy Valley left Carter County, Tennessee and moved 100 miles south to Happy Valley in search of a more peaceful place. One of the people who made that trek was the lady to the right - Elizabeth Boring Whitehead - My great great grandmother who along with my great great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Whitehead found this peaceful valley where, today, they are side by side on a beautiful hillside.
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| Members of my family keep moving towards peaceful places. The cheerful wedding group to the left is my brother, Stephen Duncan Thomson's family who live on a windswept peninsula outside of Brisbane, Australia. Pictured from left to right are Grace, Damaris - Steve's wife, the groom - Nicholas, brother Rhys, new family member Emma, brother Peter, and the world traveler who started it all nearly thirty-five years ago - Stephen.
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For more photographs and an interesting website, visit Nick and Emma Thomson's website by clicking, nickandemms
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I'm trying to acquire a better photo of my sister Lorri Williams. She is the lady on the left in this band photo of her former band, The Bop Cats - formerly of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The last photo is of myself and first cousin and close family member, Larry Tucker wandering around the historic district of St. Augustine, Florida. Larry, with the phone in his ear, is another world traveler. The last email I received from him came from Stockholm, Sweden where Larry, a nuclear engineer is working on a special project. He probably still has a phone in his ear!
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| My wife, Elizabeth, on the left is quite accomplished. A graduate of MIT who has been in the space industry for many years working on programs as diverse as the Cassini space probe and Delta IV rockets. Elizabeth currently travels to France, Russia, and Kazakhstan as part of a team that launches commercial communications satellites. When she is home she has fun digging up the lawn and planting beautiful things.
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One of the nicer attractions we have near our home in northern Virginia is the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. This is part of the Northern Virgina Regional Park Authority. Our home is on the trail and we take every opportunity to trek it. This past Thanksgiving weekend, Liz and I, with goodies and hot chocolate in our backpack, took a cold - 25 degrees F - Six mile hike along the trail. The WO&D Trail is 47 miles long and stretches from Arlington in the Washington D.C. area to Purcellville, Virginia near the Appalachian Trail. Here are some of the photos we took:
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| The frame farmhouse on the left and the stone farmhouse on the right are typical of structures that a trekker sees along the WO&D Trail. The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority enhances the trekkers enjoyment by providing markers and photographs of how the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad looked in times past. If you like bicycling or horseback riding, be sure to take advantage of the WO&D Trail on your next visit to the Washington D.C. area.
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