May 11 & 12, 2015 - Hell Fire!

Monday, May 11, 2015

Spence was a weed-whacking demon today. He was working around the parking lot as we walked through. When he saw me with the camera, he idled the weed whacker and yelled, “I told you not to take a picture of me when I’m working!”  It would ruin his reputation. Everyone knows he works hard;  his “reputation” his for his attitude.

Andy decided that the battery I found yesterday was the one from his hearing aid. So we went back to the area where I found it and studied gravel some more. I did make a discovery. When I used my walking stick as a pointer I could focus on the rocks better. I suppose it is like when people use their finger to read or add a column of numbers. It helps to keep your place. It didn’t help me find the hearing aid.

The three men in Site 3 were packing up and getting ready to leave. They had walked up the Big Creek Trail yesterday. I neglected to mention before that they had gone to Gatlinburg the day before that and sampled nine shots of moonshine and then got back to Big Creek very late at night.

Two grown brothers arrived while we were at the registration board and we told them to take Site 12. One was from Chicago and the other from Orlando. They had come here as children, but had not been back in years. We talked to one of them again in the evening and they were having a wonderful time seeing the places where they had so much fun as children. It made him feel like a kid again.

We did not walk down the creek path as usual because Andy wanted to keep searching for the hearing aid in the parking lot. The road was pretty and green in the morning sun.

I had taken a picture of the two young women in Site 2 as they were getting ready to leave, but they came down to the parking lot ready for the trail and asked me to take some pictures of them with their packs on. I like the one where they were clowning around the best. I told them I wanted an after-hike picture as well.

A couple came into the parking lot from the Big Creek trail and said that they had seen the missing dog about two miles up the trail. The owner had posted a notice on the registration station, so they headed up to the campground to get the phone number. I yelled after them as they walked away, “And tell them to keep their dog on a leash”. Of course, the dog was not supposed to be on the trails anyway, but that rule is regularly broken.

Spence had worked up a sweat and worn himself out weed-whacking like there will be no tomorrow. He was sitting next to Sao drinking a soda when we returned.

We did not stay at the motorhome for long. I packed up my computer and we headed to the Subway shop in Newport to send/receive email and to post five days’ worth of logs onto the blog. We ate our subs first. Andy took advantage of the cell signal to download some books onto his Kindle. We headed back to Big Creek when we were done. We could see the rain in the distance and were caught up in the deluge on I-40. The huge drops were so heavy that even the tractor-trailers slowed down to 40 miles per hour. We were surprised when we got off the exit to discover that the roads to Big Creek were not even wet.

After we walked around the campground in the evening, Andy had officially given up on finding the hearing aid since it had rained in the afternoon. We took the creek path to the bridge.

I walked across the bridge to the far bank to look for wildflowers and found some Northern White Violets.

The swimming hole was so clear I could see all the rocks on the bottom.

I peeked up Baxter Creek Trail, but Andy was calling so I didn’t go look for more wildflowers.

I was working on my pictures and log when I heard someone calling outside. It was getting dark, but I could see a woman walking down the road and waving her arms. I met her outside. She was looking for a horse named Ben. Some riders had stopped on the trail up at Walnut Bottoms (five miles up). The horse’s owner must not have tied the horse because he bolted and kept on running. This woman, named Cat, had not been there; she and her husband were helping in the search. Cat was certain that Ben would find his way down the trail on his own because he lives nearby and comes here often. I thought I heard a horse sound while we were talking, but Cat headed back up hill to her husband. A few minutes later she came back with the report of a Ben sighting near the toilet building close to us. I knew I heard a horse. Cat headed back up the trail calling Ben. There is something new every day. I did not hear the people calling anymore when it got dark a few minutes later.

On the radio:

There was apparently a hit-and-run accident in the evening. They were describing a vehicle with some damage and likely some paint transfer. There were two conversations with dispatch, one with the ranger on the scene and another with a ranger(s) searching for the party who took off. The ranger on scene called for an ambulance for the passenger in the victim car

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Our tradition has been to run errands on Monday, including grocery shopping and picking up whatever else we need in town. Tuesday is our day to go out exploring the park. I had proposed a drive around the western side of the park, which we have not seen before, other than Cade’s Cove. Andy said he did not want to drive on the Dragon, the extremely winding road popular with motorcyclists. I had wanted to do that, but acquiesced. There are several routes, probably just as winding. I could still see Look Rock and Fontana Lake.

Spence dropped in for his coffee refill and got in on the conversation. He did not help my cause. That’s fine. I just want to explore and there is much more to see. By the time we talked about it, it was getting pretty late in the morning to take a long trip.

I looked in my hiking trails book for the Albright Grove, a stand of virgin forest not too far from here. The hike is longer than Andy is ready to do. Andy wanted to go to Lowe’s first to look at microwave/convection ovens. That would take more time. I decided we could go to the Cosby campground and hike one of the trails there.

We took the morning walk around the campground. Five men were packing up in Site 2 for a three-night loop trip. The two girls who had hit the trail yesterday for the three-day hike were in Site 3. They had decided that the Baxter Creek Trail up Mount Sterling was really more grueling than they wanted to do and had turned back. They drove to Hartford, ate barbecue and came back to Big Creek. By doing so, they were not rained on yesterday. They were packing up to hike up the Big Creek Trail today and spend the night.

Andy remarked that women are smarter than men are. Men would have kept going no matter how miserable they were because it is macho.

We were getting ready to leave when we got a knock on the door. One of the men in Site 2 had something in his eye and wanted to know if I had any eye drops or wash. Or water. I have a bottle of drops. He tilted back his head and I stood on the RV steps and drowned his eyeball with Systane. Then I gave him one of my sample bottles from the ophthalmologist to take with him.

We headed to Lowe’s, but they do not have microwave/convection ovens. We ate lunch at Carver’s Apple House. It was too late in the day for a hike, so we went to Food City and picked up some vegetables and meats for the rest of the week.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night and decided to take a nap when we got home. Andy fell asleep at his computer. When I got up, Andy told me that something had woken him and he saw Spence driving away on his Gator. Spence probably assumed we were out walking around and left for the day.

We were surprised to see Spence driving the Gator as we were walking up to the campground around 1830. It was two hours past his quitting time. We all headed to the RV to chat. Spence said he had been helping some regular campers pack up to leave. Then he said he really got some sweet talk today. There was a story there.

He is weed whacking and mowing this week, getting the park in great shape for the Memorial Day holiday weekend. This afternoon he was working in the picnic area. A man and woman were sitting at the extra-long group picnic table near the parking lot. He told them that, if they moved to a table next to the creek, he would not disturb them. They stayed where they were while he used the leaf-blower to clear the debris off the handicap sidewalk behind the group table. He was all the way up to the water fountain near the handicap parking spaces when the woman approached him.

“Thank you very much, you disgusting, despicable, ugly, little man for ruining my picnic!”

Spence was stunned. He could not believe she said that and had already walked on before coming up with his retort: “You are not a very nice person either”. He had warned them that he was going to be working there and suggested a solution.

I started laughing and had him repeat the sentence until I got it right on my voice recorder. When he saw that he got me laughing, he continued his rant.

“I know I ain’t a purty boy, but hellfire!”

I was hysterical. Andy and Spence spent the next 20 minutes coming up with ripostes he might have used. I added a few quips of my own. Of course, park employees do not get into arguments with park visitors. Too late, Spence realized that he could have said some rude things to her and when she called the park to complain, he could say Andy did it. She could not see his name under his safety vest.

With that, Spence left for home and we walked around the campground.