Among the Pines Upon the Mountain

I feel like I've been so out of touch as I have spent a glorious week with my extended family at Kanuga in the mountains of North Carolina.  It is here that we get to live life more simply - and therefore, fully.  When people ask me what it is like, I tell them to think the resort from the movie Dirty Dancing.  There's even a talent show at the end of the week:  "The Kanuga Follies"!  My family has spent part of every summer for the past thirty years in Cottage 3 right on the lake.

There is no air conditioning, but that doesn't matter.  The temperatures stay in the low 80s most of the time.  The breeze off of the lake whispers through the pine trees. The porch swing in this 1909 cottage creaks in motion of whomever is sitting in it. 

Kanuga is reminiscent of old times.  The Monday of each week holds a square dance, and even the coolest of coolest teenagers grab their mother or grandmother's hand and swing her around the parking lot.  The same bluegrass band entertains every year, playing and calling the same songs and dances.

Hikes around the lake are treats for Sumter and Jackson, and I love walking behind them, listening to their conversations.  The mountain laurel and ferns are everywhere with a heavenly smell that, I swear, is only at this blessed place.