Stormy Day

We've had some really bad storms in the past 24 hrs. The lightning has really been rough on our electronics. Three 12 hr days in a row. I was traveling between stores today and took this shot on hwy 11 in northern Greenville county. The storm had just passed maybe 2 hrs before. This is on the southern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. You can easily see in the picture why they are called the Smokies. We have a great bunch of guys on our maintenance crew. You seldom hear anyone griping, usually it's more like "what can I do to help?" Very unusual these days. I think it's cause we all really enjoy what we do.
I was thinking about where my dad came from today. He was born and raised in Prairie county, Arkansas, a very different environment than this around here. You can count telephone poles there all the way to the horizon. They grow rice there and I can remember as a child being taken to the levie and hearing ducks eat rice. When it's quiet you can hear the snapping of thousands of duck beaks eating rice. This was in a protected game preserve and I wonder if it's still like that out there? Dad saw no future there and left to join the CCCs' (Civilian Conservation Corps) as soon as he could. Then, when war broke out he joined the army and ended up in upstate South Carolina. From there to Alaska to push the Japs out of Attu and Kiska. When it came time to fight the Japs had already left. Dad liked the upstate and returned here to live after the war. He told me once that the closest he ever came to shooting at the enemy was when he took aim at an incoming plane that had failed to identify itself. At the last minute the spotter recognized the friendly and stopped him from firing. Good for the friendly, dad was a crack shot.