Ashes in Ink

There are some weekends that feel less like events and more like proof that your hometown is its own living, breathing character.

The Bloomin' BBQ and Food Festival in downtown Sevierville is exactly that sort of weekend. It smells like smoked meat and kettle corn, sounds like guitars being tuned in parking lots, and somehow always ends with somebody telling you about either their quilting hobby or their transmission rebuild.

For the last few months, things have looked a little different in my world Downtown. At so many events, I've previously found myself sprinting through the festivities like a woman escaping a burning building while carrying a clipboard and three iced coffees.

Historically, this time of year for me has meant juggling multiple jobs, planning downtown events, answering seventeen phone calls at once, and speaking exclusively in phrases like, “Yes, ma'am, I promise you have a vendor space,” and “Has anybody seen the barricades?”

Bloomin' BBQ has always been fun for me, because although I have traditionally spent half the weekend collecting business cards and recruiting people for whatever downtown activity was coming next, I was there strictly as a volunteer for our local Chamber of Commerce, which does a phenomenal job with this particular celebration.

And this year, I decided to participate in the radical act of enjoying myself.

In that spirit, when I learned that box seats were available for the main stage concerts, I immediately bought one for myself and my staff. It wasn’t outrageously expensive, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to sit down like civilized people while listening to live music instead of lugging lawn chairs all over hell and half of Georgia?”

Well...

The first night, we walked up proudly wearing our special wristbands, only to discover complete strangers occupying our box, with their belongings unpacked for the duration. When I asked if there might be a mistake, they said that two in their party were physically disabled and they needed my seats, which security had said was ok, if no one showed up to claim them.

These people had settled in emotionally and spiritually, and because I would rather err on the side of grace than question who sits where at a barbecue festival (which feels deeply un-Tennessee somehow), I gave up our seats. Thankfully, the ushers took pity on us and relocated our little group to another empty box.

The second night, however, I approached my box with optimism. Surely lightning wouldn’t strike twice.

Dearest Readers, lightning had brought snacks and was delighting in the opening band from our personal front row.

This time, it was an older couple sitting there, looking happy and comfortable. When I explained that I had rented the box and that staff members would be joining me, they looked at me with the expression of people who had absolutely no intention of sitting on the ground.

Then came the question:

“Can we just stay here with y’all?”

And listen, I was raised correctly. I’m not about to throw somebody’s MeeMaw and Papaw onto the pavement over a Lone Star concert.

So they stayed.

And honestly? They were delightful.

The gentleman spent half the concert telling me about his classic cars with the intensity of a man who absolutely owns at least four socket wrench sets. His wife told me all about quilting, and before long, we had become amiable (if unlikely) like crew, formed entirely through mild seating fraud.

That’s the thing about East Tennessee. Sometimes hospitality comes on the heels of a little trespassing. That, or it goes downhill quick for the bolder parties. I was not up for downhill quick, even if I was on the right side of it. Sometimes it's better just to pull up a couple of chairs.

The festival itself was fantastic. The food vendors absolutely showed out this year. Adam became emotionally invested in a buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese situation that nearly changed his personality. Meanwhile, I purchased what can only be described as the greatest beverage container ever created: a tiny "gallon" jug full of orange tea.

Now, was it technically a gallon? No.

Was it probably closer to a pint? Yes.

Did I still carry it around proudly like a moonshine-running Appalachian dairy farmer? Absolutely.

I also bought a Dolly Parton keychain because if you’re in downtown Sevierville and you don’t buy a Dolly Parton keychain, I think the city council quietly revokes your citizenship.

But my favorite part of every Bloomin' BBQ weekend is always the Midnight Jam at Pinchy's Lobster and Beer.

Every year, my husband Adam and I help host the best part of the weekend, led by our dear friend, Gary "Biscuit" Davis, the world's only five-time National Banjo Champion and one of my favorite humans, and every year it becomes this beautiful, chaotic gathering of musicians of every age and skill level imaginable. People wander in carrying guitars, banjos, fiddles, and occasionally instruments that look handcrafted by mountain wizards.

There’s no ego there. Just music.

And somehow, strangers become friends in the span of three songs.

This year, I met Bob and Dawn, who came from New Jersey by way of Kingsport and had originally just stopped by Pinchy’s for dinner before accidentally finding themselves in the middle of one of the best nights in Tennessee. Bob and I talked forever about gas prices, moving, and life in general—the sort of conversation that can only happen between ten and midnight, while somebody nearby aggressively plays bluegrass in the background. Dawn stood at the railing over the beer yard and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

I saw old friends, too, including Kirk Fleta, who remains one of the most wonderfully high-energy human beings ever created. Kirk enters a room the way fireworks enter the sky. He sang with the circle of musicians and loved every moment.

Friends brought their kids. Musicians traded instruments. People played songs they barely knew together and learned in the doing. And for a few hours, everybody belonged there.

That’s what I love most about this festival: Not the food, although the food is excellent; not the concerts, although Lone Star absolutely put on a phenomenal show; not even the tiny jug full of suspiciously delicious orange tea.

It’s the people.

It’s the strange magic of a hometown festival where you can lose your paid seats twice, accidentally adopt an older couple for the evening, discuss carburetors and country music with a stranger, buy Dolly merchandise you absolutely do not need, and still walk away thinking:

“Well, that was just about perfect.”

There’s a particular kind of warmth reserved for Southern women who wake up before dawn convinced today might finally be the day they get their lives together. We rise with purpose. We light candles that smell like bergamot and unreasonable expectations. We stand barefoot in the front door frame, watching the sun stretch itself over the trees while the rest of the house clings desperately to unconsciousness.

And some of us sing.

Not well, necessarily. But loudly. Cheerfully. Against the wishes of others.

I was not born this way.

In high school, I treated mornings like a personal attack. My mother would throw open the curtains while I recoiled dramatically like a vampire being served eviction papers by daylight. Nothing good happened before ten o’clock, and anyone speaking to me beforehand was taking a real risk.

But somewhere along the road to adulthood, I looked around and realized other people seemed to genuinely enjoy their lives.

This was both inspiring and deeply suspicious.

People were jogging voluntarily. Hosting brunches. Saying things like “Rise and shine!” without irony. Meanwhile, I carried around emotional weather like a storm cloud in sensible shoes.

So one day, I made a conscious decision to become more positive.

Not fake-positive. I wasn’t about to start pretending that hardship builds character when, mostly, it builds eye twitching. But I decided if life insisted on being difficult, I was going to meet it with optimism, hard work, and enough enthusiasm to scare the pessimists.

And somehow, over time, it worked.

I became an optimist. A workaholic. A morning person.

Now I wake up every day like a Labrador retriever with a planner.

Mornings feel full of possibility to me. Fresh starts. Clean slates. Tiny little resurrections before breakfast.

Unfortunately for the people I love, this joy expresses itself musically.

I have what my family refers to simply as “The Good Morning Song.”

There are no fixed lyrics. No consistent melody. Sometimes it’s show tunes. Sometimes it’s improvised jazz. Sometimes I simply narrate the sunrise like I’m opening a new and yet unheard jamboree show at Dollywood.

My son suffered through this for years.

Every school morning, I’d head down the hallway singing at full volume while he cocooned deeper beneath his blanket, trying to escape both consciousness and genetics.

“GOOD MORNINGGGG TO YOOOOUUUUUUU....”

And from somewhere beneath the covers would come the exhausted groan of a man-child questioning every life choice that led him to this moment.

Now that he’s an adult living on his own, he no longer has to endure my sunrise performances in person, which honestly may have been his primary motivation for independence.

My husband, however, still lives here.

Bless him.

He is not a morning person. He does not share my belief that dawn is nature’s standing ovation. And unlike civilized Southerners everywhere, he doesn’t even drink coffee, which I continue to view as both medically and spiritually concerning.

Every morning, I sing to him anyway.

“GOOD MORNING TO YOUUUUU!”

He never says words back.

Not because he’s angry. Not because he’s unkind. But because he knows any response before full consciousness could accidentally encourage me.

Instead, he gives me a sleepy little smile — the kind you give someone you genuinely love but also suspect may have escaped supervision — and quietly heads for the shower while I continue singing to a man actively retreating from the situation.

Once, years ago, I said the words aloud while my mother was visiting and my son was rolling his eyes fervantly, “I have no idea what possesses me to sing this way.”

Without missing a beat, my mother said, “It's because I always sang to you.” (See, boy, you can blame your Nana.)

And there it was.

Turns out joy echoes.

The things done gently to us in childhood have a way of resurfacing years later in our own homes. Love leaves fingerprints on people. My mother sang the mornings into me, and now they come spilling back out whether anybody requested a performance or not.

And, truly after all these years, I’ve become protective of joy — especially the ridiculous kinds.

The world offers enough heaviness on its own. Bills and bad news and grief and exhaustion arrive uninvited every single day. If I want to greet the sunrise like I’m starring in a low-budget Southern musical nobody funded properly, then I think that’s not the worst thing in the world.

Sometimes happiness isn’t something that simply arrives. Sometimes it’s something you practice. Something you choose over and over until it becomes instinct.

And sometimes that practice sounds like off-key singing at six in the morning while your husband silently flees toward hot water and solitude.

Whatever... it counts. 😊

Update: I read this to Adam, who informed me he would like to write his own version of events. Evidently, living with a woman who sings full-volume show tunes at daybreak has “layers” I failed to include. If he decides to share his side of the story, I’ll let y’all know. Though frankly, I suspect it will mostly be a detailed timeline of him trying to make it to the shower in peace.

He is writing now and has already drafted, "I should have moved the light switches up the wall years ago, so that little women who always wake up in a fantastic mood need help reaching them." 🧐

Yesterday, a woman I have recently come to call a friend sat across from me at my desk and officially became a client.

But like most meetings between women over forty, especially Southern women, especially women who have survived some things, it did not stay about business for very long.

Somewhere between talk of the Queen, reservation calendars, weddings, Mother's Day, and strategy, we drifted into the real conversation. The one underneath all conversations. We talked about the lives we were taught to build. And the lives we secretly wonder if we are still allowed to want.

We talked about daughters, nieces, proteges. About ambition. About guilt. About how women can simultaneously run companies, raise families, care for aging parents, coordinate church potlucks, remember everyone’s birthdays, and still somehow apologize for being five minutes late to a meeting, still try to make themselves a little smaller in every room.

I have wondered more than once, if women ever collectively decide to rest for one full week, whether the global economy might simply collapse?

We talked about expectations and realities. About whether dreaming something new for ourselves at fifty is brave… or ridiculous.

And somewhere in the middle of all that honesty, I considered again the bubble-gum pink sign that hangs under a golden poster of our patron saint, Dolly, behind my desk. It reads, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”

Now, understand something. We are not heathens over here.

We are an all-female, faith-based team. We pray regularly. We know how to behave. We know how to dress appropriately. Jesus is important to us. We write thank you notes and always RSVP. We know how to smile politely in meetings while mentally calculating whether everyone in the room is underqualified except us, or if we are completely out of our leagues.

We know the rules.

Good Lord, women have always known the rules. Our mothers knew them. Our grandmothers knew them. Our aunts practically embroidered them onto decorative pillows:

Be humble.
Be grateful.
Don’t ask for too much.
Don’t be loud.
Don’t intimidate people.
Don’t make anyone uncomfortable with your ambition.
And for heaven’s sake, do not become “difficult.”

But here is what I know now that I did not understand at twenty-five: The women who came before us were not wrong. They survived the world they were given. And, perhaps even more importantly, they made us strong enough to survive ours.

That matters.

I look at my mother’s generation with enormous respect. Those women built families from scratch, stretched budgets like miracle workers, buried grief quietly, stood beside their husbands faithfully, and somehow managed to keep lipstick in their purses through all of it.

They carried things we will never fully understand.

But the world has changed, and whether we like it or not, this generation of women is being asked to carry something different.

Not necessarily more. But different.

Daughters are growing up in a world their mothers could not have imagined. A world moving at breakneck speed. A world filled with noise and distraction and impossible expectations and opportunities our grandmothers would not have dared whisper aloud.

And maybe that is why I keep coming back to the Book of Esther lately: “For such a time as this.”

Not such a time as theirs.

This one.

This complicated, exhausting, beautiful, messy moment in history, where women are allowed to lead and nurture. Build and believe. Speak and soften. Dream and disciple.

Maybe holiness was never meant to look like shrinking. Maybe wisdom is not silence all the time. Maybe faithfulness does not require women to disappear inside everyone else’s expectations.

And maybe—just maybe—we are allowed to become ourselves fully before this life is over.

I think a lot of women hit fifty and quietly assume the story is winding down. But what if it is not? What if this is the chapter where we finally stop asking permission? What if this is the season where women stop apologizing for taking up God-given space in the world?

Not arrogantly.
Not cruelly.
Not selfishly.

But truthfully.

I spent too many years believing bravery belonged to the men among us, and perhaps to women who just didn't know better yet. Now I think bravery belongs to women who have survived enough life to know exactly what fear costs.

You know, there is something wonderfully liberating about getting older. By fifty, most women have completely lost the energy required to play dumb for male approval, and I personally believe that deserves its own national holiday.

So no, our mothers were not wrong. But neither are we. They prepared us for survival. Now we must prepare the next generation for purpose.

That means raising women up who know kindness and conviction can coexist. Who understand faith is not weakness. Who know beauty is not their greatest currency. Who are unafraid to lead tables instead of merely decorating them.

And maybe most importantly, women who understand they do not need to become hard in order to become powerful.

So here is my challenge to every woman reading this today:

Dream the thing anyway.
Start the business.
Write the book.
Take the trip.
Go back to school.
Apply for the position.
Launch the ministry.
Wear the red lipstick.
Speak up in the meeting.
Set the boundary.
Rest when you need to.
Laugh louder.
Pray bigger.

The world does not need more exhausted women trying to disappear gracefully. It needs women fully awake to who they were created to be.

Well-behaved women may rarely make history.

But faithful women who refuse to bury their gifts? They change generations.

Mother’s Day in Sevier County is apparently sponsored by panic-buying husbands and the floral department at Kroger.

I ran into the grocery store today for one thing, nail polish remover, and accidentally wandered into what looked like the final scene of Braveheart for every man who forgot Mother’s Day until church let out this morning. There were husbands clutching roses like life preservers, teenage boys speed-walking toward greeting cards with the fear of God in their eyes, and one poor soul standing frozen in front of the carnations like he was taking the SAT.

Honestly? God bless ‘em. They were trying.

Meanwhile, my own day was full in the best kind of way. My sweet husband took me out to lunch, my boy called to tell me he was sending me an ice maker (“not the expensive one,” he clarified immediately like a man not the least bit concerned about his inheritance 😂), and somewhere between work projects, speech prep for the Methodist church tomorrow, and getting ready to head out to a municipality rebrand presentation this week, I stopped long enough to realize something important:

Life may be busy, loud, messy, and held together with dry shampoo and caffeine… but it’s also really beautiful.

I missed my mama a little extra today. That never fully goes away, does it? But I also found myself so grateful for the women in my life: the dear friends I texted today, the ones who have stood beside me through heartbreak, hard seasons, laughter, reinventions, prayers, and all the in-between moments. Lord, I have the best girlfriends on the planet.

And maybe that’s what Mother’s Day becomes as we get older. Not just a celebration of motherhood itself, but of nurturing. Of showing up. Of loving people well. Of the women who mother us even when they didn’t give birth to us.

So tonight, here’s to the exhausted mamas, the grieving daughters, the bonus moms, the church ladies who fed half the county, the best friends, aunts, and other matriarches who answer the phone no matter what, and the Sevier County husbands currently fighting for their lives in the flower aisle.

Y’all did good today. ❤️

Now, somebody pray for me while I finish this church speech before daylight. 😅

Shout out to my newest followers! Excited to have you onboard!

Anthony Johnson, Jamie Kurz, Randal Webb, Nicole Lacey, Opal Baar, Judy Kibler, Teresa Isabel Marin Telles, น.นู๋ ศรีสงคราม, Joe Morrison, Andrea Nichols, Pamla Poulos, Duane Dibble, Ricky Lane

There are few sounds more terrifying than hearing your full name echo through a school auditorium while holding handwritten notes on 3 x 5 cards looking suspiciously like you just got kicked out of a Guns N’ Roses concert for “being too emotionally committed.”

Every ninth grader at my private school was required to write and deliver a devotional in front of the entire student body, grades six through twelve, plus faculty, staff, and any unlucky parents who happened to be trapped there that morning. For most students, this assignment inspired panic attacks, stress acne, and urgent prayers for spontaneous building evacuations.

But not me.

I viewed it as an opportunity.

This was the very late 80s, and I was deep in my heavy metal era, fully hormonal, passionately opinionated, and operating under the sincere belief that flannel, combat boots, and emotional instability constituted a personality.

I loved loud guitars, rebellious lyrics, and any band that made adults appear on television clutching pearls and warning America about “the youth.”

Naturally, this meant I considered Tipper Gore my personal nemesis.

For younger readers: Tipper Gore helped lead the movement to put warning labels on explicit music. Which, ironically, only made teenagers want those albums more. That little black-and-white “Parental Advisory” sticker wasn’t a warning.

It was a recommendation.

So, there I stood at fourteen years old behind a wooden podium, armed with a devotional on the topic of my choice, several deeply questionable opinions, and the fearless confidence unique to adolescent girls who have recently discovered both sarcasm and eyeliner.

I can still picture the room perfectly.

The younger students sat on hard wooden pews beyond the senior class to my immediate right, radiating the chaotic innocence of children who still thought middle schoolers were sophisticated. The high schoolers slouched dramatically in what are now considered vintage desks, trying to look emotionally unavailable. Teachers lined the walls, clutching coffee mugs and what remained of their patience.

And there was my mother. My sweet mother. A math teacher at the school… A woman who believed in order, logic, and probably not hearing her daughter deliver a devotional that somehow evolved into a defense of heavy metal music before 9 a.m.

She stood frozen against the wall behind a giggling group of seventh-grade girls, looking exactly like someone trying to calculate whether embarrassment could actually cause death.

I started respectfully enough. Scripture. Reflection. A thoughtful point or two. Teachers visibly relaxed.

Then I made the mistake of believing I had been called to greatness.

Because fourteen-year-old me had apparently decided this devotional was the ideal venue to publicly challenge America’s moral panic over heavy metal music.

I explained that music ratings were censorship.

I implied adults were wildly overreacting.

I suggested people should stop judging others based on appearances, clothing, or musical taste.

It is absolutely possible that I referenced both Jesus and Ozzy Osbourne in the same four-and-a-half-minute speech, which remains one of the boldest editorial decisions of my life.

The room became so quiet you could hear khakis and chinos creaking.

One teacher stared at me with the expression of someone silently reconsidering her career in education.

Meanwhile, my mother looked as though she would like to melt into the white-washed wall with the survival instincts of someone hiding from incoming artillery fire.

And here’s the truly incredible part: I thought I was absolutely crushing it.

That’s the danger of being fourteen. You possess the confidence of a revolutionary leader and the judgment of a raccoon on espresso.

When I finished, the audience offered polite applause, the kind people use when a child with zero musical talent aggressively plays violin in public. A few classmates grinned. Several teachers looked spiritually exhausted. Somewhere in America, Tipper Gore probably felt a mysterious disturbance in the force.

But looking back now, I realize there was something honest underneath all the adolescent chaos.

Because beneath the hormones, rebellion, and aggressively bad fashion choices, I genuinely cared about hypocrisy. I genuinely hated shallow judgment. I genuinely wanted adults to understand that young people were more complicated than the labels slapped onto them.

And here’s the thing… I still believe that.

But I’m also grateful I grew up.

Because adolescence is a brief, fever-dream season of life where every opinion feels eternal, every emotion feels catastrophic, and every public statement feels like it might change the world. Then one day you wake up, pay your own electric bill, and realize maybe not every battle requires a dramatic monologue before first period.

The teen years pass faster than anyone tells you they will. Thank God for that. What survives, if we’re lucky, is the courage underneath all the awkwardness.

That’s the moral hiding underneath this deeply embarrassing memory:

Teenagers often express important truths in the least mature way imaginable.

Adults dismiss adolescent passion because it arrives wrapped in drama, awkwardness, and enough hairspray to violate environmental regulations. But underneath all that noise is usually something real: a longing to be understood, respected, trusted, and seen as more than a stereotype.

Young people don’t need adults who panic every time they test boundaries.

They need adults willing to stay in the conversation long enough to shape the passion instead of crushing it.

Even when that passion sounds like a freshman girl accidentally turning a devotional into a congressional hearing on heavy metal censorship.

Especially then.

So, here’s my call to action: the next time a teenager says something dramatic, idealistic, awkward, or wildly overconfident, resist the urge to immediately roll your eyes.

Listen for the deeper truth underneath the performance.

Because sometimes growth looks less like polished perfection and more like a girl in combat boots accidentally giving a TED Talk about freedom while her mother contemplates disappearing into the ancient drywall of a high school auditorium forever.

A local influencer notified all of us with a tourism algorithm in Sevier County that today is National Tourism Appreciation Day, and if anyone local actually read that article, I’m sure they discussed it over coffee and biscuits at what used to be Frank Allen’s with someone’s peepaw acknowledging, “Well… I reckon that tracks.”

Frankly, most of those of us who love these mountains wouldn’t have it any other way. Tourism is why we eat.

The truth is that living in Sevier County, Tennessee, is a little like living inside a very big family reunion hosted by a theme park. We don’t really have “tourist season” anymore. We just have varying levels of brake lights.

Now, before anybody gets defensive, let me say this clearly: we love y’all. We do. Tourism is the heartbeat of this place. It keeps the lights on, the pancake houses flipping, the cabins booked, and every single one of us (some with a degree or two of separation) employed in some form of hospitality-related chaos or the industries that support it. If you’ve ever bought a funnel cake, ridden a mountain coaster, or stood in line for cinnamon bread at Dollywood, congratulations. You helped pay somebody’s electric bill.

That matters here.

But since it’s Tourism Appreciation Day, I feel like tourists deserve to know what life is actually like for the locals who call these mountains home.

For starters, we measure distance differently than normal people.

Someone from out of town says, “Oh look, Gatlinburg is only eight miles away!”

Bless your heart. That could mean twelve minutes or two business days, depending on whether a bear wandered into traffic or somebody stopped their car in the middle of the road to photograph a turkey crossing the Parkway like it’s a celebrity sighting.

We also possess survival instincts that would impress the military. A true local can hear a car with Florida tags trying to merge three lanes over and immediately calculate seventeen alternate backroads through Seymour, Wears Valley, and rural routes that technically qualify as goat paths. We no longer need GPS. We use inherited mountain intuition and a deep fear of roundabouts. By the way, New York can keep those heinous death circles; we will keep our stop lights, and Delmer, with this “Slow” sign at the entrance to the latest roadwork project that might be finished when you come back again, year after next.

And speaking of traffic, tourists, I need you to know something important. The phrase, “The Parkway is backed up,” is not news here. It has been backed up since approximately 1987. We’ve embraced it. We plan our entire lives around traffic patterns.

Need milk? Better leave before lunchtime. Doctor’s appointment in Pigeon Forge? Pack a snack and notify next of kin.

Want to go literally anywhere on a holiday weekend? That sounds like a personal problem.

And yes, ma'am, we do let out our schools early for the Rod Run. Otherwise, those young'uns would never make it home by bedtime.

And yet somehow, every summer, we all find ourselves at the same grocery stores with the visitors, locals dodging souvenir t-shirts while our guests are trying to figure out why the cashier calls everybody “Sweetie.”

Then there’s the questions locals hear every single day.

“Do y’all ride bears to school?” No, but one did knock over our trash can Tuesday. (And if you are fool enough to leave honeybuns in your vehicle don’t be surprised when one opens it like a tin can, but that’s perhaps a lesson for another day.)

“Is the river heated?” Yes, ma’am, it’s a natural phenomenon we call “Sunshine.” (This rivals the question posed to a friend of mine who works in a hotel lobby and was asked recently, “Can you please turn the volume down on the river?” The lady from Ohio was kind enough to explain, “It’s keeping us awake.”)

“Have you met Dolly?” …My friend, around here, we speak of Dolly Parton the way medieval villagers spoke about royalty. We don’t meet Dolly. We honor her. We protect her. We point toward Dollywood like it’s a holy landmark.

And yes, before you ask, locals absolutely go to Dollywood, too. Usually on a random Tuesday in February when it’s forty-two degrees and nobody else is there. That’s one of the secret perks of living here.

We also know exactly which pancake house has the shortest wait, which backroads flood first, and who at church can get you discounted attraction tickets if you ask nicely enough.

But beneath all the jokes is something real.

Tourism doesn’t just support Sevier County economically. It gives this place life. People come here to celebrate anniversaries, reunions, honeymoons, birthdays, graduations, and fresh starts. They bring their kids to make memories in the same mountains their grandparents visited decades ago. They sit on cabin porches for a weekend and breathe a little deeper. They reconnect here, with each other, with their mental health, and with nature, because there is nothing quite as beautiful as these mountains we call home.

And after the last car leaves and the lights quiet down a little, locals recount how we got to be part of those stories.

“I waited on the sweetest old couple from Florida this morning. They’ve been here every year for sixty-three years,”

or, “We baked a cake for a couple who’s getting married this weekend before she’s deployed,”

or “I just DJ’d a three-day long traditional Indian wedding celebration. It was phenomenal,”

or, “I did a photoshoot in the National Park for four generations of women from the same family this morning. They turned out beautifully.”

These are the stories of our lives… and we hear them from our friends and neighbors so many times it’s hard to count.

That’s something worth appreciating.

So, to the visitors sitting in traffic right now reading this while trying to figure out why it takes forty-five minutes to travel three miles: thank you. Thank you for loving these mountains enough to come back year after year. Thank you for supporting local businesses, local families, and local dreams.

Just one tiny favor in return:

If you stop in the middle of the road to photograph a bear, please do it from the safety of your car, and also, maybe have the courtesy to wave at the locals trapped behind you. We get it, but we’ve seen all the bears at least eighty-seven times and we still need to get to work.

It’s National Tourism Appreciation Day, after all.

And in the spirit of celebration, I’ve got a challenge for both locals and visitors:

This week, do one unapologetically touristy thing. Eat the giant cinnamon roll. Ride a mountain coaster. Buy the goofy airbrushed t-shirt. Take the family photo you’ll laugh about for twenty years. Wave at strangers. Tip your servers well and smile at them. Stay for the fireworks. Make the memory.

Because around here, tourism isn’t just an industry.

It’s local tradition, a way of life with a side of traffic.