I slept late and
Andy had a peaceful morning. The forecast rain did not appear until evening,
but it was muggy all day. Purple boat man was in the campground early
bargaining for Site 10 with the occupants who were planning to leave. He piled
his gear at their site while they ate breakfast and packed up. As usual, we
walked along the creek to the bridge. This ledge is one of my favorite spots.
Here was a new
sight in the picnic/parking lot area. My only guess is that the owner had made
a stop in the toilet building before heading to the creek. I like the way the
blue chair stands out against the green.
We walked on
past our site and on to the horse camp. All the horse people had hit the trail
early. They left two horses behind. Maybe they are spares. Maybe there was no
one left at home to horse sit, so they brought the extras along for a camping
trip. I took pictures of this red one yesterday from the other end. I was
walking by and thought, “this is a good opportunity to add to my animal butt
collection”. Then I noticed her back legs. She looks knock-kneed to me. The
other horse’s legs did not turn out like that.
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| Horse Knees |
I noticed some
nice plants along the horse trail. This vine is so delicate and the sun was
hitting it just right. For the rest of the day, I was thinking of the word
“tendrils” and long curly hair.
 |
| Tendrils |
This fern frond
was covered with water droplets and sparkled in the sunshine as we walked by. The
picture does not capture the effect very well.
 |
| Fern |
Something else I
have not noticed in the horse camp before today. The wheel barrow has been
converted into a barrow. I don’t know when that happened. It must make it
impossible to muck out the stalls and carry the stuff to the dumpster. That
means more of the job will fall to Spence.
 |
| Barrow |
We saw a family
walking up the horse trail with a dog and called to them. When we said dogs are
not allowed on the trails, the man suddenly remembered that fact about national
parks. We offered to dog sit and this is our dog of the day. Her name is Millie
and she loves Pupperoni.
 |
| Millie |
She was anxious
about her family leaving and paced around, wrapping herself up in our lead
several times. After a while, she settled down. When a woman came riding a
horse up the trail though, the dog went ballistic. I don’t know what she would
have done if she had not been tied to the picnic table. When the family came
back, they were mystified and told us the dog is accustomed to horses and goes
along on trail rides.
Boss Larry
stopped in with updated reservation reports and we chatted for a while. He has
more area to cover now and can’t stay as long. I asked him to relay a message
to Ranger Heath. I have blueberries and will make him a cobbler if he shows up
here soon. We are leaving on Monday.
Just about the
time Larry was leaving, friends Jim and Dianne, from Raleigh, stopped in for a
short visit while on their way to a family reunion in Alabama. Dianne had
mentioned the possibility when she was here before, but we forgot about it and
were surprised to see them. Andy told them we would stop at a Walmart near them
as we pass through Raleigh on our way to Son Mike’s house in far northeastern
North Carolina.
Dianne was
telling Andy that she has applied for a new job with the city. If she gets the
job offer, her current employer, the county, will match the offer to keep her.
I suppose her job title is some kind of cartographer; that was her major.
 |
| Dianne Saunders |
Andy was
listening raptly.
Jim broke out
his new ukulele and played pieces of a lot of songs. It was fun to listen to
him. He is a beginner, but as with everything else he does, he has jumped into
it with great fervor.
 |
| Jim Duncan |
Here’s another
rhododendron shot. Big Creek road is filled with them, especially down along
Chestnut Branch by the ranger station.
 |
| Rhododendron |
We had gone down
to the river to send/receive email last night, but this morning I discovered
that the email did not all go out. Maybe that is why the Outbox was so full. Andy
wanted to go refill prescriptions at the Walgreen’s in Newport so he suggested
that we wait for them to be filled at Subway. We dropped off the prescriptions
and got our regular table in Subway (the one with an electrical outlet next to
it). I made sure all the email went out this time. We did our evening
campground check by car when we got back.
On the radio
There was some emergency on the Laurel Falls Trail
already underway when we turned the radio on in the morning.
Someone reported “three llamas off the trail”. They
use llamas to pack supplies in and out of the Mount LeConte lodge, at the top
of, well, Mount LeConte. I didn’t get whether the llamas had simply wandered
off the trail in search of tasty leaves or whether there was a mishap and they
fell.
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