We spent a good
part of the morning in the tent campground talking to campers. The men in Sites
4 and 6 invited us to stop in to see them in Sawyer, Michigan on our way to
Wisconsin. They said they are only 12 miles off the interstate. One of the men
owns a brewery, but he was drinking a Miller. He said he needs a change once in
a while.
I was so
frustrated with the internet access yesterday that Andy suggested that we go to
Subway today and try again. I went through all my bounced mail messages and
resent to those people. After I finished my veggie sub, I did a send/receive
and everything seemed to go out just fine. I’ll know for sure the next time I
get on line and count the undeliverable email messages.
I bought a huge
box of blueberries at Costco and made a blueberry cobbler with them. Something
went wrong. I doubled my crust recipe to account for extra blueberries, but was
still extra juicy. It was the first time I made a cobbler in my new oven too. I
used the taller rack and got an unusual crust pattern. It was super thin and
crispy in a circle. Maybe I should have tripled my crust recipe. It was still
delicious.
I noticed a man
and woman walking a dog past the motorhome. They looked to be heading to the
Big Creek trailhead, but I didn’t go out to stop them. Then a couple minutes
later, I saw them walking toward the picnic area. I went out and asked them if
they wanted to go up the Big Creek trail and offered to dog sit. He is a
labradoodle named Maduro. That is because he was the color of a Maduro cigar
wrapper when he was a puppy. One dog treat and he was mine.
Sometimes he
would come sit by my chair and other times he would go sit next to Andy.
When his owners returned,
I asked if he had the personality of a lab and the non-shedding virtue of a
poodle. They said, no. He has the lab personality, but does shed a bit. He is
the first generation. They said that subsequent generations shed less and less,
but they also get more wiry like a poodle.
Spence and
regular-camper Junior arrived about 1500 for blueberry cobbler. We knew Ranger
Heath would arrive when I pulled the cobbler out of the oven. However, we heard
Ranger Heath on the radio making a rescue on one of the Cosby trails. When he
finished saving the woman, he signed “out of service” at 1800.
Andy wrote
another verse for Smoky Mountain
Maintenance Man.
He’ll be golfing on the golf course when he’s gone.
He’ll be golfing on the golf course when he’s gone.
With his woods he will be smackin’. With his irons
he’s weed whackin’.
He’ll be cussin’ on the golf course when he’s gone.
I didn’t like
the present tense for weed whacking, but haven’t come up with a better
alternative yet. Maybe “with his irons a weed whackin’.”
Hikers were
still streaming up the trail to the Midnight Hole at 1611.
We saw this huge
motorhome in the campground parking lot when we walked around in the evening. The
generator and air conditioner were running. The man in Site 1 was rather unhappy
about it. He said he came to this campground to avoid generator noise. I put a
courtesy note on the windshield to remind them that this is a non-RV campground.
I also reminded them that the campground parking lot is for campers only. Not
that anyone else pays attention to that sign. Andy called it in to dispatch,
just in case a ranger might feel inclined to drive to Big Creek.
On the radio
About 1534 a 250-pound woman was hurt on the
Trillium and Grotto Falls trail and was having trouble walking down. They were
organizing a litter team to go up and carry her down. Another ranger came on to
report that cars were blocking the road and they might have trouble getting the
emergency equipment to the trailhead. At 1700, the man on the scene told the
litter team to stand down. The woman had a sprain on the ball of her foot and
did not need a litter.
At 1542 a girl tubing in Deep Creek hit her head on
a rock and needed medical attention. The ranger on the scene reported that she
was not conscious. Swain County EMS picked up the girl at 1601.
