It was late afternoon, and we were hiking back down the mountain after a full day of work. It began to rain, and as we walked we saw wisps of fog cover the hills through breaks in the trees. Everything was green and wet and misty and beautiful. I felt a sense of accomplishment and peace that I hadn’t for the past month as I had struggled to acclimate to my new environment. Our group had been chatting as we made our way down, but as the rain started we grew quiet, listening instead to the sounds of the forest on a rainy afternoon in the Smoky Mountains.
