As our family’s very excellent beach adventure nears that we call our Fall Frolic, I felt it was time to give an updated Ground Report from this neck of the woods since it is in a tourism mecca for the eastern US. Literally millions of “leafers” will be on the prowl into this region to enjoy the beautiful colors and pleasant conditions of hillbilly country in Autumn.
They will be faced with frequent traffic issues in the form of bottlenecks on the main interstates and highways. I expect some “off the beaten path” travels and adventures, which will be of economic benefit to some smaller communities in the area. I will address a few of the primary road issues later in this report.
But first…
Bud
Thank you very much for your prayers and concerns for Bud. I am very happy to report his surgery went as well as we all hoped. Bud’s dad called me after he made it back to his room. Doc #2 did exactly what he said needed to be done and would do. He did a resection of 10″ of the diseased/dead part of his colon, closed, and sent him to recovery. The procedure took less than an hour. He was out of recovery three hours later with a normal meal, well, as much as hospital food can be normal, waiting for him in his room. He was told he could eat whatever food he wanted that did not cause him discomfort. He will be in the hospital for a couple more days and released if it all goes as expected. He will have a no heavy lifting restriction for three months.
The surgery was identical to my father’s from sixty years ago. The result is similar as well. We are all encouraged by the results and God’s provision. He dodged a bullet with idgit Doc #1. The lesson being always to pray first and then get a second opinion if you have any doubts whatsoever with anything medical.
Chemtrails Again In The News
Below there is a link with MTG coming off the top rope on chemtrails. Like or dislike her, the awareness she is bringing to the issue is a very good thing. I am still amazed at the people who will accept and agree that the jabs turned out to be a bad thing for humanity since they have been obviously injuring and killing people worldwide. But mention this subject and they go into denial and think it is BS or another annoying conspiracy theory even with the government itself admitting that it has been done for over 80 years.
It’s just another tool in the belt of the globalist criminals with depop and creating chaos for business opportunities. Your injury or death means nothing short of a celebration to them.
Anecdotal observations for our region have been that weather patterns are returning to the 1980’s and early 1990’s patterns in the eastern part of the state, which means normal to you flatlanders. Call it a regular old climate cycle. Precipitation has been historically normal without many extremes of deluges or severe droughts that had become common for the past 30 years. Temps have dropped as a trend overall. Local insect population has declined from its unprecedented annoyance level of the past several decades and is now more typical of this mountainous area. Wildlife remains abundant. One other pleasantry has been that we enjoyed cool nights in the 50’s for nearly two weeks in mid-late August before warming up moderately into September. That has not happened since the late 1980’s. We have returned to “mild” and pleasant conditions for which this area was formerly noted, along with the brilliant blue, non-chem trailed skies
All of that says the fall colors could be spectacular in the region unless the remaining government criminal embeds pull off more wildfires.
It also means the potential for some major snowfall events, which have not been seen around here for a long time. The old farmers’ weather predictions related to fogs in August bringing snow in winter will be scary this year if proven true. It was very foggy in the mornings for over half of the month of August, as in so dense you could not see more than 20 feet in front of you type foggy at times. Will see how it goes. I am thankful for my tri-fuel generator just in case. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s we had some dandy winter storms that paralyzed the area.
Effects of Helene
Less than two weeks ago there were local news reports about Helene’s on-going effects that blew many of us away. Of course the national fake news would never report it so I am doing so here. There was a feature story from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that controls the waterways and lakes in our region. Their leadership and engineers discussed openly on local newscasts that if they had not opened the dams more and lowered the water levels of the lakes a few weeks before Helene hit, there would have been two or three dam failures in east TN as the volume from the storm increased water levels in those affected lakes by 21 feet. Their assessment was that both Knoxville, Chattanooga and everything within the vicinity would have been been flooded. More than 2 million people would have likely had their lives signficantly impacted. The DOD, DOE and Oak Ridge National Lab reservation would also have been affected as it sits along the Clinch River basin that is in this discussed TVA controlled flood zone. Same with the University of Tennessee main campus that is located on the Tennessee River in downtown Knoxville.
Once again by the providence of God, a regional calamity was avoided by the wise acts of unseen engineers, who had no idea an event was coming of Helene’s magnitude in just a few weeks. They believed that precipitation in the weeks prior to Helene was above normal and raising lake levels more than they deemed appropriate and safe, so they took action sooner than normal. They saved lives and untold misery.
All I can say is that it was a good thing residents around here did not know or there would have an untold amount of panic and chaos.
Nah, nothing to see here. Cloud seeding and geoengineering are BS. Receiving 1.5-2.5 feet of precipitation in 48 hours on top of a mountain range from a hurricane that made landfall hundreds of miles away that was initially going in the opposite direction, a path that all previous hurricanes have taken, would not cause that. Would it?
🤪
As things stand now in east TN, these TVA operated lakes and waterways are in recovery. We were very fortunate the dams did not fail during the event. As it was, massive flooding of area rivers and tributaries contributed to towns flooding, death, property damage, and extended despair. Lake clean up efforts will pick back up this fall since water levels were lowered by TVA as they are supposed to do every year. They made sure they informed the public it had been done this time. As Mother Nature cleans herself, recreational activities in the lakes will also increase. As an example, due to the nastiness of the water quality the many professional bass fishing tournaments typically held in the region post Helene were cancelled or relocated. I am pleased to report that they have resumed for the fall/winter schedule beginning in late September. That is a very good sign water quality conditions and natural habitats are improving.
Area Roads/Bridges
Now on to the road situation. Most of us never really think about all of the bridges we cross each day. In the affected area in TN alone there were 47 bridges destroyed. Yup. Due to the great efforts of our state’s DOT and related contractors, 29 have been rebuilt a year later. This includes the bridges wiped out along I-26 in the most affected Unicoi County area, a massive rebuild. Most of the contractors worked straight through the coldest parts of winter to get things done. They are unsung heroes.
Which leads to the most important damaged section of interstate road in the region; eleven miles of I-40 through the gorge at the state lines of NC and TN. Earlier in the spring the contractor was able to get two lane traffic going along this stretch. Large tractor trailer rigs had to reroute such that only smaller rigs are permitted on the road as it was on I-26 for a year.
The good news is that traffic through the area generally moves, albeit more slowly, such that delays are usually only around 30 minutes or so unless you are on it during peak periods. The other good news is that they are rebuilding in the manner they would if it was a dam. They are going 30′ down into the bedrock along the river and building a dam like structure for the entire eleven miles. Rock slides will no longer cause extended shut downs for clean up and repairs and the adjacent river will no longer wash out the road bed. The various governmental entities got together and agreed to build the best it can be and the funding is appropriated. This is encouraging because it is a major national interstate that cross country truckers and tourists are dependent upon.
The bad news is that it will take three years to complete. Yup – 2028. Oh well, at least the construction is well underway.
Total cost of project will be $1.36 billion for eleven miles of road rebuilding. Ouch.
Thankfully, FL has joined us in the chemtrails/geoengineering ban. That is a big deal. Hopefully, other Atlantic/Gulf bordering states will follow suit soon.
Regional Economy
The negative effects of Helene and its destruction of roads and bridges messed with tourism in the affected area. That would seem pretty obvious.
Not according to the local fake news media. They keep telling us that they are certain it is Trump’s tariffs causing it. Yes, despite TN’s 3.6 unemployment rate and a national CPI of 2%, the economy is slowing they say and people are having to stretch their budgets. Of course, people always have to stretch their budgets even in the best of times. That is just a tired old expression used by idgits in media.
The propaganda continues. The interesting thing to me is they continue to say leftist garbage in a deep red area while it is painfully obvious they have a dwindling number of advertisers to pay for those young, inexperienced (cheap) fakebook style news reporters.
In fact, the local Fox affiliate no longer has its own news staff. They contract the local NBC affiliate to use their news staff to provide it. That Fox affiliate is just hanging on by a thread.
In reality our tourism numbers through July revealed a 6% downturn year to date, although more recent visitation is surging unbelievably strong. The following photo was not taken in the middle of tourism season in July. This was from this past Saturday in October and an on-going thing for the past couple of weeks.

SIL was called in after his night shift later that day to assist with thousands of unruly young people who had taken over the roads throughout the county. So, authorities cancelled the second day of their event in response. Organizers have been told they are no longer welcome here. The recently hired new City Manager is much more safety oriented than the previous good ole boy who was afraid to step on anybody’s toes.
Some of the car shows and rod runs are getting out of hand, like this one did. It will no longer be tolerated throughout the area. Some residents could not leave or return to their neighborhoods due to the effects that day. They let their elected officials know they will take it into their own hands if it happens again. They put the heat on the mayors and the results were good.
Tourism will all end up strong on the year as it usually does. It has helped from a labor point of view with ICE cleaning things up. There are less illegals for employers to hire in restaurants, cleaning, lawn services and construction. You know, the ones the employers frequently pay cash under the table or otherwise pay for contractor services; who pay cash and provide housing free of charge under the table to their illegal employees. I know that probably shocks some readers. Not. Deporting them helps the rental housing market crunch for the citizens moving here for the many jobs that are available.
It is happening in the SC lowcountry as well. Per friends and news reports, ICE has been busy picking up illegal workers who had, yup, fake social security numbers and no visas. They were working in local businesses such as landscaping/nursery companies, construction, restaurants and such. Buh-bye, amigos. Their families are shown the door and head out with their departures. The businesses that hired them are then investigated and many are fined. They are monitored closely after that.
Expect voting turn out and results to change. Oh well…
Most know that many employers are a major reason we have many illegals in this country. The remaining illegals in our area have been left some time to self deport before being dealt with when ICE has more assets available. That appears to be soon as a large influx of ICE officers arrived two weeks ago. Employers have been placed on notice that they are aware of some who are still employed and residing in the area. I expect many to head out over the next 60 days. By exiting voluntarily they now know they can probably reenter legally with worker visas at some point. However, at that point the employers can no longer hire and pay them under the table, so there will be less of them.
The short lived tourism downturn was primarily due to much road construction during the peak tourism season even in areas that were not affected by Helene. This area is at the crossroads of two of the most traveled and far reaching interstates in America; I-75 north and south and I-40 east and west. I-81 also feeds into it from north and east. Both 40 and 75 have major road rebuilding and bridge replacement projects going on within an hour of the subject area that have made traveling a nightmare at times. Some of it had nothing to do with Helene, it was just age and condition related. The 75 rebuild/repaving project is nearing completion.
I also hate to tell Dolly she pushed the pricing envelope too far, but Dolly, you pushed the pricing envelope too far. That has not helped things. Many local folks can no longer afford the annual passes. That has not stopped the park from adding at least one major amusement ride to the park each year and this off season is no exception.
https://www.dollywood.com/themepark/rides/nightflight-expedition/
Things around here should grow in a big way in 2026. Conditions have not deterred many new attractions and businesses from going under construction throughout the area. Expansion is rapid in both commercial and residential sectors regionally. Housing inventory has improved. It is still tighter than normal, but going the right direction without an uptick in prices. If anything the prices have drifted down a bit with the increased inventory.
The industrial, educational and governmental sectors remain stable. Industrial will jump forward when the licensed nuclear power plant for DOD and private businesses in the Oak Ridge area is completed down the road. This new plant will be located at the site of a former small coal fired TVA power plant that was taken off line and removed recently.
Churches
Talk about a resurgence. My goodness, so many churches are growing rapidly. Baptist, Global Methodist and non-denominational are leading the charge. The “progressive” churches are declining steadily, but not anywhere enough to offset the growth in the others. Catholic churches have remained stable.
Young people were returning to church around here even before Charlie’s death, which mirrors a nationwide trend. That is a very good thing. As the drug culture is beaten back, I expect more of the same. Trans is not much of a thing in our neck of the woods, nor are pedos and perverts accepted in any way. Only the white liberal women will support any of them around here, which means the other 90+% of our population will not tolerate any of it.
Charlie Kirk’s death had an impact here as it has nationwide. People are still talking about what happened. People who would have never believed the truth about our current situation as a nation, do now. TPUSA chapters are booming.
Schools
A funny thing happened when ICE made its appearance. Children of illegals began disappearing as well. All of sudden there were many vacant desks in all of the classrooms this fall as school started. When added to the rapid expansion of homeschooling and 20 K of state students receiving financial assistance to attend private schools via the state’s school choice program, well, the times they are a’changing. All that led to some significant teacher, tutor and assistant layoffs. Which led to the state teacher association (non-union – right to work state) to becoming quieter and more cooperative with state authorities and administrators. It also reduced facility expansion plans in many school districts, which takes more tax burden off local tax paying residents.
Imagine that. The next thing the officials will be telling us is that the state’s comprehensive test scores have significantly improved.
It’s science.
😀
Medical Care
Another funny thing happened when ICE made its appearance; medical offices and hospitals are providing easier access to citizens. Wait times in emergency rooms have declined. Access to physicians is met with, “What time works for you that day?” and “If you need to be seen today I can work you in at 3 PM.” type responses. Lobbies are empty to having small numbers with short wait times to be seen. It is as if 1990 has returned to our area.
Food/Fuel Pricing
Overall food prices are down significantly everywhere. There is no denying that truth any more. Fuel prices have started slowly trending down. In our area it takes tourism to decline into the off season to see substantial declines of fuel prices. But the trend is down.
Conclusion
I could rattle on, but that is enough to give a good indication for where we are. I hope some of you will do likewise and talk about your areas so the rest of us can learn more about what is going on in this great country of ours.

Please remember Wolf’s rules for our community. In general that means to be respectful to each other and to pull no shenanigans that your mom might find offensive or otherwise cause jail time. That said, free speech is honored here.
Be blessed and go make something good happen!