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Once upon a time there was a grand hotel that sat in the clouds on top of a mountain, straddling the line between two states, and a white stripe painted on the dining room floor could put you in Tennessee or North Carolina depending on which chair you chose. It was called the Cloudland. ☁️ Back in the 1880s, a man named John Wilder built it on the summit of Roan Mountain, at over six thousand feet, on one of those strange treeless grassy balds where the wind never stops and the view runs for a hundred miles. Getting there was an adventure in itself, a train to the foot of the mountain and then a long climb by horse and carriage up a winding road. But the wealthy came anyway, by the hundreds, fleeing the heat and the fevers of the lowland cities for the cool, clean, thin mountain air that doctors swore could cure whatever ailed you. The Cloudland was a wonder. Long verandas, a grand dining room, music and dancing, and clouds that would roll right up over the porches so the guests felt they were floating. And that famous painted line. Tennessee was a dry state at the time, so the story goes that a man could be served a drink only if he sat on the North Carolina side of the room, where it was legal. Folks loved to tell that one. But a hotel on the roof of the world is a hard thing to keep. The season was short, the weather was brutal, and the money never quite worked out. By the early 1900s the Cloudland closed. In time it was torn down and sold for lumber and scrap, and the fierce mountain weather erased the rest. Today you can walk that same bald on Roan Mountain and find almost nothing left, just a few foundation stones in the grass and the same endless view. The clouds still roll over the summit exactly as they did. A palace once stood here, up in the sky. The mountain simply took it back. 🏔️