Some people may look at the abandoned houses of Elkmont, Tennessee and see a classic example of human waste and excess. These perfectly functioning houses built with natural resources such as logs cut down from the local forest have been abandoned. They are no longer hospitable in the slightest, and people who may have lived there will now be using additional resources to build new houses in a new location. Instead of having natural forest there is now a ghost town serving no purpose other than entertaining tourists.

I actually found the abandoned houses beautiful and reassuring.

The houses look as though they are being swallowed back into the forest. The image comforted and reassured me because it made me confident of the fact that nature and wilderness would recover, irregardless of what humans do to the planet. There is a lot of worry with climate change that humans are going to permanently alter the planet and ruin it. This picture reminded me that while climate change could potentially make this planet inhospitable towards humans, nature will always adapt and survive. Nature will always reclaim its land.