I came upon these gorgeous tiger lilies while biking Madison’s southwest bike trail yesterday.

As you can see, many of the people who live along the trail do a great job with their flower gardens.

Smokies update:
Thanks to Dad, I’ve added one more picture to the photos of our trip.

Pictured here are four Bloy cousins. From left to right: James Bloy, Wilmer Bloy, Janette McCormick (née Bloy) and Ruth Zeppelin (née Bloy).

Unfortunately, there are no shots of the two of us together.
We should have taken a few of those.

Update: July 26, 2008
Today Dad and I exchanged pictures of our trip. He took this nicely composed shot of me with his camera.

At first I was disappointed in the change of weather, but then I saw familiar scenes made beautiful in a different way.

In some places, the clouds seemed so close you could almost touch them.

The park also has a lot of mountain creeks running through it.

In some places, the rhododendron petals on the ground were pretty thick. From a distance, they almost looked like snow.

We came across the below scene after a short rain storm. You can see in the distance how heavy the humidity was.

It’s hard to see (a little easier if you enlarge the picture) but there are white rhododendron blossoms along the whole length of the above creek.

At one stop, we were gawking and taking pictures of a roadside creek. When we turned around to go back to the car, we discovered this small waterfall on the other side of the road.

At Newfound Gap (above) the blue smoke (actually haze caused by moisture and organic compounds from the lush vegetation) was very apparent.

The views at Morton Overlook (above and below) were probably the most spectacular I saw at the park.

The hiking trail to the top of Clingmans Dome, the highest spot in the Smokies, also offered awe inspiring views (below). Unfortunately, the higher I got, the more the haze prevented me from taking decent photographs.

Sometimes though, it’s good to put the camera down and just look.

Even when the mountainsides were fairly close, such as the Chimney Tops (below) the haze was very noticeable.

When you drive through the park, it’s difficult to keep your eyes on the road as scenic views emerge.

Our destination for the first day was Cades Cove, a valley surrounded by the mountains.

We were there on a Sunday, with a lot of other tourists.

As you drive through the Smokies, there are countless scenic views along the roadway, like Meigs Falls below.

The speed these storms were moving was almost amazing. The entire sky changed from sunny, to grey, to almost black within about 20 minutes. Then a little while later things would brighten up, and there would even be some patches of blue sky. While all this was happening the weather conditions were going from warm and muggy, to cool, then a few minutes later, warm and muggy again.

What you can’t see in the still picture below is that the clouds directly above were moving northeast, yet the ones in the distance (behind the transmission tower) were moving south.

So in honor of Mom, here are some shots of flowers I took recently.