May 20, 2018 - Memorial Day Men Arrive

We had heard Spence using a blower or string trimmer earlier.  Then he showed up for a cup of coffee while we were eating breakfast. Then he headed up to the tent campground to clean the restrooms. We were heading to the campground when Andy decided to stay in the picnic area parking lot so he could direct traffic to the horse camp day-use lot.  I walked around the tent campground myself.

Does this car have enough stickers?

I had taken a resupply of brochures and newspapers for the registration kiosk.  Someone had taken the rock paperweight away!  It is necessary to keep the newspapers from blowing around.  I rummaged around the campground until I found another suitable rock. There were only two sites with tents on them and only a couple there that was just leaving.  A man and woman with two small children drove in to look at the campground.  I described my favorite spots and told them to take a look around.

When Bill and Mary were here yesterday, I kept aking them to taste the Licorice of the Woods.  Most of them tasted more like turpentine than licorice.  This morning, I tried one and it was delicious.  Then, a few yards farther down the campground road, this one tasted terrible.

Licorice of the Woods

The parts I've been tasting are those flower-bud-looking things. I can't figure out why some are so good and others awful.

Two young men (early teens) had walked up the horse trail while we were eating lunch.  Before we were done, they came back by.  One of them excitedly told us they had seen a large bear on the far side of the creek.  He said the bear had moved off when he saw the boys.  We said we would warn the campers not to leave any food out to attract the bear into their campsites.

Also, during lunch, Andy said he thought he had seen a golf cart go by the parking lot.

As we walked up to the campground in the evening, we saw a car parked in the handicap parking space.  I have called Dispatch to report such a number of times in the past, but no rangers ever came to give them a ticket.  So, I did not call it in this time. I'll ask Boss Larry for advice.

We were delighted to see the Memorial Day men in Site 12.  This is the group that comes every year the week before Memorial Day.  We stopped and chatted with them.  They said they had bought a copy of  Big Creek at the Big Creek Country Store.

They had two large tents on Site 12.  I reminded them that tents are supposed to be on the ten pad.  Then I added that I was not going to give them a hard time since they had three huge racks of ribs over their fire. Then they told me that when they called for a reservation today, they were told that only Site 12 was available.  When I look it up in the reservation system, there are seven sites available.

As we were walking back to our host site, a four-wheel vehicle came cruising through the parking lot.  Andy said that was the one he had seen from our picnic table while we were eating our lunch. They were two men and two women with a big cooler on the back.  The vehicle did not have a license plate.  I could not help but wonder if they had driven it up the Big Creek Trail.  It had been several hours since Andy saw them drive in.

Mushrooms have sprouted up by the tree next to the toilet building.

May 17 - 18, 2018 High Maintenance Woman

Yesterday was another foray out to civilization - and a long drive to the west of Knoxville, Tennessee to the endodontist. No one looks forward to a root canal, but I was anxious to get the tooth fixed.  It has been bothering me for a long, long time and been worked on several times.

I really liked Dr. Case. Never felt any pain.  Not even the shots to numb my mouth. In the end, though, he did not finish the job. He said he wanted to give me another week or so of antibiotics to clear up the infection.  He also thought he saw a crack in the tooth.  He will look at the CT scan and decide how to proceed by the next appointment.

My face was swollen when we went to Costco to order a new pair of glasses for me.  Andy is absolutely no help in choosing frames.  With every pair I tried on, he said, "Looks good".  The anesthetic seemed to be wearing off so I ate a Costco hot dog and part of my right cheek for lunch.

It had been raining heavily at Big Creek when we returned and the rain continued through the night.  It was clammy humid when we walked up to the campground this morning.  Eleven of the twelve campsites turned over today.  I placed the registration cards on the board and we walked around the nearly-empty campground before heading back to our site.

This couple could not reserve the same site for their stay so they moved this morning.  They said they will move back to their first site when it is vacated.

I had noticed that four sites were reserved by the same person. It turned out to be "A Walk in the Woods", a company that runs guided hikes in the Smokies.  We have seen them here in the day-use parking lot, preparing lunch out of the back of a van for their hiking customers.  Today, the hikers must have gone up the Big Creek Trail.  There were three or four people setting up their large tents.  It looked like a deluxe affair with cots, mattresses, and a rug inside the tents. Here they are in Sites 5, 7, 8, and 6, left to right.  That is empty Site 4 in the foreground.

I have seen and photographed these plants since the first year we volunteered here in Big Creek.  Most of my pictures are of the clusters of tiny white flowers.  A few years ago, unthinking, I pinched off what looked like a flower bud and put it in my mouth.  Yummy delicious licorice flavor!  I had to look it up again.  It is Sweetroot, a member of the carrot family. It is also called Licorice of the Woods.  According to what I've read about it tonight, I'll be safe sampling the leaves tomorrow and maybe even add them to our salad.

Here is another plant I have not identified yet.  I know I have seen it since childhood.

Boss Larry stopped by in the early afternoon.  We have hardly seen him since we arrived.  We had a nice visit with plenty of laughs.  I forgot to take a picture of him again.  I did remember to ask for more park brochures though.  They disappear at a great rate at the tent campground.

The sun came out for a while in the later afternoon.  This is a walkway past the group picnic table to the bridge

Today was the first time a got a decent picture of the rock wall across the bridge.  I finally figured out to take a picture other than straight on.

Andy waited on the bridge, apparently looking for fish.

These leaves are hanging above the bridge.

Today there was a cute little standing wave at the top of the drop, just downstream of the bridge.

This rock in the creek upstream of the bridge caught my attention today.  I guess it was the way the light was shining on it.

When I zoomed in with my camera, I noticed that a little tree is growing on it.