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However, while at Mt. Mitchell, yesterday, I shot this image of the Pink Rhododendrons with it. There are very large purple ones too but these little pink ones are the most beautiful, I think. 
Stick your finger in the flower and see what happens 
Mountain-laurel is the state flower of Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Never knew that. I had a sling shot, that is what we called them, though not technically a sling, made from one of the forked branches of these things, back when I was a kid. I wasn't allowed a BB gun so I made a sling shot. It was pretty stout and could through a black walnut about a half block or farther with the Goodyear heavy duty rubber bands I had on it. Used an old leather shoe tounge for a pocket. I tell ya Doug, those black walnuts did more damage than a BB gun. They would take a chunk of hide off of whatever I hit with them. Later on I got hold of some really large steel ball bearings, talk about artillary and they would go out of sight when launched from the sling shot. 
Yeah, weren't those the days. Now you stay gone for a half and hour and they put out an "amber alert." Of course no one bothered kids back then, I guess we were just to mean to put up with, always being ran off for doing something we shouldn't. Like sticking "taters" up the tail pipes of peoples cars and stuffing mean old tomcats in mail boxes and putt'n the flag up.Life was different back then. You could disappear all day, and as long as you got home at 5:00 for dinner, you were OK.
I agree. Same family: Ericaceae. Along with the Pacific madrone, manzanita, heather, and blueberry. A tiny family with huge variation.beetleman wrote:I do believe it is a Mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia. Not sure if it is related to Rhododendrons.
I would prefer to see it brighter, though. Photoshop histogram confirms that it's dark -- no values above 196, aside from a few specular highlights. Easily fixed with a levels adjustment stretching 0-198 to 0-255.
