Ellen Visit

We dog sat an old girl yesterday. She looked as though she has had twenty litters of puppies.  She was very calm when her family left.  She had a skin problem (I think it was a common dog allergy) and was rubbing up against Andy's chair to scratch it.  After she whimpered while doing so, I got a tube of Benedryl and rubbed it in the area that she had just about rubbed bald.  That seemed to relieve her suffering a bit.  I loved the way the fur on top of her head made a pattern when she furrowed her brow.

These mushrooms really stood out on the lawn in the picnic area parking lot.

I hurried back to the motorhome after the morning campground walkabout while Andy was dealing with traffic in the parking lot.  I was just hanging my keys on their hook when I saw Ellen walking up to the motorhome.  That was quite a surprise because I thought she was in Boulder, Colorado.  Well, she had been.  She was driving home to Raleigh, North Carolina and dropped by to say hello (and get a copy of Big Creek for her mother, Diane.  Ellen told me that she had parked in front of the gate to our site.  I thought she should move it so the people in the group site could get in and out. Meanwhile, Andy was up at the gate reporting to dispatch that someone had parked and blocked the road to the host and group site.  When Ellen got there to remove her car, Andy called dispatch to report that the car owner had returned and moved the car.  Then we all laughed about it.

We were having a delightful visit with Ellen when Spence and Linda dropped in to say hello after they had cleaned the restrooms. Ellen asked Spence and Linda both to autograph Big Creek next to their photos. Of course, Spence told her a few stories before he got up to leave.

Ellen asked Andy to help her check her oil.  She was not sure she was doing it right.  The problem was that the oil level was too low to register on the dip stick.  We drove her to the Citgo station in Hartford to buy some oil. Big Creek Road was a traffic mess.  So many cars were parked along the road, even in front of the no-parking sign and the horse trail, that we had to back up quite a way to allow an oncoming car to get through. Then several more came before I could pull back out to go down hill. Cars and trucks were driving up Big Creek Road one after the other.  Down past the ranger station, on the sharpest curve, we got gridlocked with cars lined up in both directions. Andy got out of the car and told each driver to park in the horse camp.  At least a dozen cars came in as we were making our way down the last stretch to the park entrance.  If we did not need to bring Ellen back to get her car, I would have stayed out of the park until evening to avoid a repeat of that experience.

The return trip was a little easier.  I stayed up at the gate to make sure no one blocked it to prevent Ellen from driving home.  Andy and Ellen topped off the oil and she was on her way.

Some park visitors had left two large dogs in the back of a pickup truck.  They were secured with their leashes.  But, after we walked by, one of them took a leap out of the truck.  I went back to make sure the dog had not hung herself.  She had yelped but was standing next to the truck.  We did not try to get her back in the truck since she had been barking at us when we walked by.

On our way back from the campground, three young people were with the dogs.  The second dog had also jumped out of the truck and was caught up on the tow hitch.  They had disconnected the dog's leash.  The first dog had hurt both hind legs when she jumped out.  I had not seen the blood when I checked on her.  There was a good bit when we returned.  One of the young women was studying to be a veterinary tech and bandaged the dog's legs. I left a courtesy notice on the windshield and asked that they be more responsible dog owners. The future vet tech left the dogs secured to the outside of the truck.

On the radio:

A group of mini-bikes was speeding through Little River Road about twenty miles over the speed limit.  One ranger had pulled over several, but the ones in the front of the group got away.  He called to another ranger to be on the lookout for them.  A second ranger thought they were leaving the park and heading to Wears Valley. Later in the day, Ranger Heath pulled over two mini-bikes.

Two hunting dogs with radio collars were running around in the park. A ranger caught them and put them in a kennel.  He got the owner's phone number from their collars.

A twelve-year-old boy was wandering around alone.  It may have been a volunteer or maintenance person who called it in to dispatch.  The caller said that the boy did not speak English.  A Ranger responded and found the boys parents.  We don't know how.