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Palmer House, Cataloochee Valley, Tennessee. It still looks nice. They took the money and they left home, decades ago, when the government bought them out to make a new national park. I walk the old planks to the end of the barn, where there is a framed view of the house, across the way. It looks like the bench and chair were arranged here to gaze out at a home, not just a house. As a Palmer, this place never belonged to me, but I had plenty of places I called home, for a time. Memories and regrets wash over me like a surge of tidewater. Here is where life was lived, good and bad. Here is where someone's heart was. But the heart is a complex thing, always at odds with the brain, love versus logic. The heart says stay, but I am a just a visitor here, and so it is time to go. I left home.

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Image Size: 2048x1359 / 3.9MB; Palmer House Barn Great Smoky Mountains National Park National Park barn house homestead landscape HDR landscape photography Ray Palmer Photography home autumn south Tenessee TN
Contained in galleries: Other Encounters

Palmer House, Cataloochee Valley, Tennessee. It still looks nice. They took the money and they left home, decades ago, when the government bought them out to make a new national park. I walk the old planks to the end of the barn, where there is a framed view of the house, across the way. It looks like the bench and chair were arranged here to gaze out at a home, not just a house. As a Palmer, this place never belonged to me, but I had plenty of places I called home, for a time. Memories and regrets wash over me like a surge of tidewater. Here is where life was lived, good and bad. Here is where someone's heart was. But the heart is a complex thing, always at odds with the brain, love versus logic. The heart says stay, but I am a just a visitor here, and so it is time to go. I left home.