May 23, 2015 - Chili in the Park

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Andy got up during the night to use the toilet. This is not news. While he was standing there, the mouse ran across his foot. I checked under the sofa for any food that a mouse might chew into and removed two boxes of pasta shells and two boxes of linguini. I put the potatoes into the new microwave/convection oven and covered the fruit bowl with a plastic lid. I don’t think there is anything left out accessible to a mouse. I hope it will get hungry and go away.

Even though I felt as though the holiday weekend started two or three days ago, it really started today. Of course, the campground was full. Three parties left and three more moved it before the tent pad cooled down. The day visitors were pouring in constantly throughout the day. Most of them headed up the Big Creek trail. It was hectic.

Spence told us over coffee that when he was twelve years old, he got a court summons for a child support case in Memphis, Tennessee. At that time in his life, even if he had been an exceptionally young rogue, he had never been west of Knoxville.

This trailer and motorcycle were in the parking lot in the morning. They were hooked up to a large white car.

 

Boss Larry stopped in and brought me some more Smokies Guide newspapers and pay envelopes. He needed my daily census numbers for the campground because he is going on vacation  (Bahamas) next week and wants to submit his monthly report early. Andy complained to him that Maintenance man Robert had locked the gate to our site again. Larry promised he would come again tomorrow.

We met an Indian couple in the parking lot looking for waterfalls. We gave them directions and also mentioned the Midnight Hole and the bridge farther up the Big Creek trail.

A couple with a toddler boy arrived last evening with bicycles in their car. This morning, they were getting ready for a bike ride and the woman asked me about the condition of the road between here and Cataloochee. It is a winding, gravel, mountain road, but I called to Spence at the toilet building to get more specific information. He said the gravel is well packed. I told her the distance is about 16 miles. She said, “Good” and then asked me what trails were over they could ride on. Holy cow!  They are going to ride 16 miles on a narrow, winding, gravely, mountain road (that does mean up, down, up and down, up, down), ride around Cataloochee, and then ride 16 miles up and down back to Big Creek?  I checked out their leg muscles.

We chatted briefly with the group in the horse camp and they were getting reading to hit the trail. Their horses are larger than most others I have noticed. Two of the three couples came from Montana. I suppose this first picture can be added to my animal butt collection.

 

I was making chili for our dinner and had invited Spence to join us. He and Andy were sitting outside while I was cooking. I heard Spence call to a backpacker walking down the horse trail and called to him out the window. We had seen a car parked in the horse camp day lot for nearly a week and were hoping someone returned to it soon. I asked if that was his blue car and he said yes. The guys started talking about his hike and Andy invited him to eat chili with us. He quickly accepted and put down his backpack.

While we were eating, we heard Ranger Heath on the radio saying he was in Big Creek. Andy, Spence, and I all laughed and said Heath smelled the chili. A moment later though, dispatch told Heath some hikers had found camping gear along Baxter Creek Trail. They had brought it to the ranger station. My thought was that a hiker had set his gear down to find a private spot behind some trees to take care of business. He was probably not happy to return to the trail to find his gear gone. Heath told us later, that the gear was actually spread along the trail. He put it in the ranger station so we can return it to the owner if they come to claim it. It’s a mystery.

Then Ranger Heath got another call. Park visitors had called the park to report that someone had left a dog in the back of their truck (with a cap) while they hiked up the Big Creek Trail. Andy and Spence headed up to the parking lot to see if they could rescue the dog. Hiker Jeff loaded up his backpack, thanked me for the chili, which he said is better than his mother’s, and headed on down the trail to his car. Andy returned to the RV for a tarp to put over the back of the pickup to shade it a bit.

 

The truck cap has a small open window, but the dog was still hot. Its tongue was hanging out, but it was not panting. I took a picture through the screen and then wrote a courtesy notice and put it on their windshield.

I walked around the campground while Andy, Heath, and Spence stayed in the parking lot. Cars arrived every few minutes. People were looking for a campsite or just a place to park. This eight-month old saw me a campsite away and smiled. Of course, Grandma had to go talk to her. Her parents are marines who drove here from Jacksonville, North Carolina for the weekend.

 

I spent some time directing traffic when I got back to the parking lot. That means telling some people the campground was full and telling others where they could find a parking space. Ranger Heath had left without eating any chili. Spence left at the end of the day without eating the leftover banana pudding I had saved for him.

Andy suggested building a campfire in the early evening. It was very relaxing to sit by the fire after a hectic day. A man with two girls came looking for a campsite. We put them in the group site, since the people who had reserved it for two days had not shown up.

We got a surprise visit from Ranger Will who is now the acting head ranger for our quadrant of the park. He brought along Ranger Chase, who is the backcountry ranger. We have not met him before. Andy complained to Ranger Will about Maintenance Robert locking the gate. Andy is really fussy about the gate across the road to our site and the group site.

Ranger Chase was not talking much, so he posed for a picture.

Ranger Will was talking to Andy, who was seated, so his picture did not turn out as well. I’ll have to get another one of him in the future.

  

On the radio

A couple called for help when their twelve-year-old boy did not return to the Smokemont campsite after heading out into the forest near the Toe String trail looking for firewood around 1000. A team was formed to search for him. Some personnel were assigned to keep park visitors out of the area so they would not destroy any signs of the boy’s track. At 1110 they announced a description of the boy. Ranger Will said the boy was found. I know it was several hours after he went missing before I lost track of it on the radio.

A two-year-old fell at Clingman’s Dome and her head was bleeding.  She was not responding, but they did not think she was unconscious.  Her eyes were open. Dispatch decided to send EMS. A few minutes later, they reported that it was just a scrape on the chin and she seemed better. At 1115, the little girl was not as responsive as before. The medic had arrived and was looking for the family in the parking lot. Ranger Will said she was fine.

At 1212 an off-duty ranger reported that there was a cardiac event on the Laurel Falls trail. They were giving him CPR. He had a history of heart disease and high blood pressure. He was not conscious. Ranger Will told us the man had died.

Just before 1800, the elk were wandering around near the Mingus Mill and traffic was building up. Dispatch called for the Luftee Rover to control traffic.

1905 at ranger called 700 saying he was going to be out with an individual lying in a pullout wearying camouflage. A moment or two later he came back on the radio to say it was not camouflage, but really dirty clothes. He talked to the young man and learned that he was walking over the mountain to Cherokee. The ranger told him it is dangerous to walk on the narrow mountain road in the dark so the man showed him a blinking flashlight. The rangers can warn someone, but I suppose they can’t stop him from doing something crazy.

A ranger came upon some people camping illegally (not in a campground) and told them to move on. I don’t know where else they could go in the park; it seems all the campgrounds are full.

Dispatch stayed hopping-busy late into the evening responding to ranger’s traffic stops for all kinds of reasons. He was still answering one call after the other when I finished my journal at nearly 2330.