June 10, 2015 - Cataloochee

Andy and I sang Smoky Mountain Maintenance Man for Windy and Lisa in Site 8. Since they are regular campers here and know Spence, they enjoyed it. In the past, Windy told us that, if there are no weed whackers in heaven, Spence will refuse to go.

This is Marshall, Windy and Lisa’s grandson.

 

I checked to see if the giant spider was still on the tree in Site 11 and got a better picture this time.

I proposed two options to Kathy for the day’s adventure. We could go to Cataloochee or Pigeon Forge to see a show. She opted for Cataloochee. I opted to drive over the Mount Sterling road to get there. It is 16 miles from Big Creek to Cataloochee and I drove 10 to 15 miles per hour all the way. The scenery was beautiful, mostly trees and bottomless valleys. The road was extremely narrow and gravel.

Our first stop was the Palmer Place, built in 1860 as a log house and the siding was added about 1902. The white addition on the left was a post office.

 

The style of the house is called Dogtrot, which refers to the open hall down the center of the house. The staircase to the second floor is in the dogtrot. The two small rooms on either end of the front porch are not connected to the rest of the house by inside doors. A back porch extends across the entire backside of the house. There are four interior rooms on the first floor and two on the second floor.

 

Here is the Cataloochee version of Spence trimming around the house. He is outside the kitchen door.

 

Our next stop was the Palmer Chapel, a Methodist Church. I think this building replaced an older one in 1929. The church, like the Palmer house, sits right on Cataloochee Creek.

 

The interior is quite simple.

 

A bit farther down the road, we came to the Beech Grove School, which was built in 1903.

 

It had two rooms. The front one was painted and had desks. The back room was larger, but the walls and ceiling were dark, unpainted wood.

 

As we walked out of the school, Kathy and I saw a woman staring through the trees to a field. We walked over to see what she was looking at and she told us it was an elk. She said that there was also a baby, but when I got this picture on the computer screen, I decided that the baby is still in mama’s belly. She must be pregnant.

 

It was a good bit farther down the road to the Caldwell Place. We passed many turkeys in a huge grassy field. I suppose we might have seen the elk herd grazing there if we had come out earlier.

The Caldwell house is on the opposite side of the creek and we walked over a bridge of three logs with boards placed on top.

 

The house was built in 1903.

 

Kathy and I were both surprised how elaborate the woodwork is on the inside. It was all bare wood. If it had been painted in the past, I could not tell.

 

Check out those walls. It is a big house; all the rooms were large except the kitchen.

 

We paused to watch four turkeys cross the road in front of us.

 

Here are Andy and Kathy looking at fish from the bridge over Big Creek.

 

This fellow was fishing farther downstream.

 

On the Radio

A 911 call came into dispatch about a woman on Gregory Bald Trail or Gregory Ridge Trail whose muscles had “locked up”. I believe she made the call, but it could have been her partner who was headed back down the trail to get help. There was a bit of confusion as to where the patient was located, so rangers took two different trails to look for her. Even after one met up with the partner who was running down for help, they were still not sure exactly where she was. The “In Charge” or “IC” ranger called for a litter team to carry her out and several park personnel came on the radio to volunteer. At 2115, a rescue person with the patient said that she had a number of medical issues, but was conscious. He was going to administer glucose to see if that helped her. She had been asking for sugar. The glucose made her tongue go numb. At 2145 she was “ambulating” toward Campsite 12. The litter team was assembled and ready at the trailhead at 2252. The ranger with the woman thought she could walk out, but was going very slowly. He asked the litter team to stand by in case her condition changed. I went to bed and did not hear any more.