A Cataloochee Proposal: Alyssa and Cody
I went looking back in the history of my email to get this right: Cody reached out to me on February 12, 2020 to start planning his proposal to Alyssa. With the pandemic that seems like a lifetime ago. But November starting slowly moving forward until suddenly it was here - the day had come!
And so did the threat of rain.
That is the thing with the mountains, you just don’t know how they will behave when it comes to planned activities. A wind advisory was in effect, which frankly is not the safest time to be in the Smokies, much less make a bumpy ride along a 7-mile stretch of dirt road with a sheer drop to one side to reach Cataloochee Valley. But Cataloochee is a special place, what with its elk population and peaceful serenity given it can only be reached via a bumpy ride along a 7-mile stretch of dirt road with a sheer drop to one side.
But can love be stopped? Oh no, my friends, it cannot!
Let’s see what happened:
Ah, Alyssa - it seem neither of them had gotten much sleep the night before due to the high winds - as Cody explained, it sounded like the forest was throwing everything on the roof of their Air BNB, keeping them awake, and then she’s worried because he wants to cross this bridge while this poor woman was trying to take a picture of it . . . never realizing that the “poor woman” was there to take THEIR picture!
And what a ring Cody presented her!
Unfortunately, the elk chose to stay far away on the other side of the valley but we still had a fine time with a photoshoot, despite the rain showing up!
Hailing from West Virginia, Alyssa and Cody are just an incredibly darling couple - here is to be their brilliant future together, having just shown that their love can weather a storm!
And as I close every blog post about a proposal in the SMokies . . .
Mazel tov, you crazy kids!