June 8, 2015 - Abram's Falls

I don’t know if it was Andy or Kathy who got the bright idea of mounting the umbrella on the front of the car to dry, but it sure is funny looking.

Yikes! The couple in Site 11 showed us this monster spider on the tree next to their campsite. They said it had been there for days. They thought it was going into that knot-hole. It was so big, it looked fleshy. I don’t think I could sleep knowing it was so close. I would have to be checking on it every few minutes to make sure it was still on the tree.

Kathy perused the hiking trail book and we chose Abrams Falls Trail clear on the other end of the park. It did not look too steep on the graph in the book. It was a long drive, which meant stopping for lunch on the way, which meant Mellow Mushroom. Kathy picked the Holy Shitake pizza. It had mushrooms, garlic, cheese, and a spiral of aioli. It was fabulous.

Abrams Falls is a popular, five-mile, moderate hike. Spence had reminded us before we left that it is also where many people get hurt tripping over roots and rocks. I hadn’t thought of it before, but he was right. We regularly hear of  twists, breaks, and sprains at Abrams Falls on the radio.

The first thing I did was get in line. Kathy was not too far behind me. There were two doors, but only one of them could open. We hoped that didn’t mean someone had died behind the left door.

 

I turned around to see what Andy was up to. He was smirking because he had watered a tree along the road on the way there and didn’t have to wait in line.

It was a nice trail, but we did have to watch our step. Andy was doing fine until we got to a log bridge and he decided that he was not steady enough to cross it. He told us to go on ahead and he would wait at the car.

I spotted some Sweet Shrub (or Sweet Betsy) along the trail. It has been gone for weeks in Big Creek.

 

Kathy and I posed for each other on the log bridges.

After a while, I was glad that Andy had turned back because the trail had more rocks and roots as we gained elevation. Most of the trail was easy walking, but there were a number of rough spots. He would not have been a happy hiker.

This ridge is the halfway point, according to the trail book.

 

Here is where the trail goes through a notch in the rocky Arbitus Ridge.

I went first and waited for Kathy to cross so I could get a picture of her crossing over.

Abrams Falls was worth the hike. It has a twenty-five-foot drop.

There is also a large, deep pool beneath the falls. The book says not to swim there because of the swift undercurrent and there have been several drownings in it. If I recall correctly, the sign at the beginning of the trail warned that there have been seven deaths at Abrams Falls and warned us not to be the next one.

I can’t figure out how to get Photoshop to connect the pictures, so you’ll have to do it yourself.

 

Here is one more broad view of the falls.

It was already clouding up and Andy had set a time he expected us to be back. It was not enough time and we hurried back. I should not have hurried quite so much as it was getting darker. I was out of control and tripped on a root. My face hit another rock, but I was fine when I wiped the dirt off my cheek. I walked slower after that.

We were more than half way back to the parking area when the rain started. I put up my umbrella, that had been serving as a walking stick, at the first drop. Kathy kept using her umbrella as a walking stick and got soaked. It was a typical Smoky Mountain deluge. We met Andy somewhere after the first log bridge. He knew we were close because the couple just ahead of us told him we were right behind them.

May 05, 2015 – Pots and Mac!

Tuesday, May 05, 2015 – Big Creek

Drats!  The microwave/convection oven seems to by dying. It will only run for about 50 seconds before shutting down.  That’s either as a convection oven or a microwave.  Maybe it can be repaired, but who repairs stuff anymore?

Spence stopped in for his coffee refill and he and Andy were discussing the two dead walnut trees next to the motorhome. They have been dead for several years and Spence and Andy agreed that they should be cut down.

           

They look to me as though they could stand there dead for many more years.  But, if Spence cuts them down, I want him to convert them into firewood.  Neatly stacked. The men were talking about chain saws and Spence mentioned getting a chain saw stuck in a tree he was cutting down once. He said that once he was cutting down trees and another fellow was picking them up with a big claw.  The other guy told Spence to lay the next tree down on top of a stump to make it easier for him to grab it with the claw.  Spence felled the tree and it did land perfectly on top of the stump.

The Spence told us that he almost got into a fight in the market on his way home yesterday.  He was a real hot-head in his youth, but has mellowed as he has aged.  The market was crowded and there were two long lines at the registers.  The man in his 20s in front of him pointed to his place in line, said, “This is my spot”, and then walked outside to smoke a cigarette. When he came back inside he was very loud and cussing in front of women and children.  Spence told him that he needed to calm down.  Spence doesn’t take well to men cussing in front of women and children.  The guy told Spence that it was none of his business and Spence replied, “You better calm down”.  That’s when Spence thought the guy was going to start fighting, but he didn’t.  When the other guy left, the man in line behind Spence said, “I thought there was going to be a fight there. I had your back”.

Spence was telling a story of his wife Sharon and his cousin sitting at the kitchen table talking about what they would put in a personal ad for an ideal man.  His cousin was going on and on about the kind of man she wanted: tall, handsome, dark hair and so on.  When she finally finished and it was Sharon’s turn to compose her personal ad, Spence interrupted before she could speak and said, “Six Cocke County men to carry a coffin for a dead woman”.  I guess that meant she had better not be placing any personal ads in the newspaper.  Well, then he told us that his cousin was “laughing like a hen that just laid an egg”.  After that comment, I was laughing like a hen that had just laid an egg.

A beautiful moth was in front of Sao.  It looked dead, but flapped its wings when I touched it.

This pot was sitting in the parking lot. I had noticed it on the ground in the picture of the young man holding the interesting walking stick yesterday.  We set it up on the water fountain by the parking lot.

A group of five or six hikers was standing in the parking lot looking as though they could not figure out which way to go. Andy asked them where they wanted to go and one answered, “the Midnight Hole”.  Simultaneously, Andy pointed to the left and I pointed to the right.  Maybe we looked like a couple of lost idiots, but Andy was pointing toward the shortcut trail up in the campground and I was pointing to the Big Creek trailhead behind the group. After we explained the options and walked toward the bridge, I commented that we looked like a couple of idiots.  Andy added, “as usual”.  We never agree on anything.

I just had to take another picture of Sweet Betsy just because the sun was shining on it.

Someone has been stacking up rocks in the creek again.

This large rock, or these two large rocks along the creek are a mystery. We can’t decide whether they have been cut or are naturally shaped this way.  Andy is standing on a flat section and the side of the rock next to him is flat.  We can’t discern any cut marks.

I walked a bit down the creek bank to look at it/them from another angle. It looks more like two rocks from there.  Were they once one rock?  How did they get stacked like that?  We’ll never figure it out.

Andy got out the 100-foot measuring tape this morning and I asked to carry with us when we walked around so I could measure the length of the bridge and the width of Big Creek under it.

The bridge is 88 feet 5 inches long. The creek is 59 feet wide between the bridge piers.  Now I know.

On the radio:

People coming down a trail were reporting that a seventh-grade girl had been bitten on the hand by a copperhead snake.  Eventually, the medic sent to investigate caught up with the girl and said that she was not showing any signs of a severe reaction.  She had been bitten on the finger and the hand was swollen – only to her wrist. Dispatch had called for an ambulance. Some time later, the medic reported that she was sending the girl to the hospital in the ambulance.

A maintenance person in Cade’s Cove called 700 to report that some park visitors told him that a car was driving fast and recklessly and nearly ran over their two daughters who were on bicycles. They had a tag number and said the car was a red classic Chevy of the 1950s vintage.  When the Chevy driver saw that they were trying to read his tag, he took off at high speed. A ranger waited at the exit to Cade’s Cove.  He kept calling back for a better description of the car and to reaffirm the tag number.  I thought, “How many 1950s red Chevys can there be in Cade’s Cove at the same time”.  The ranger called in again and asked, “Did the car have a white top?” It was a convertible, so the top probably was white.  I figured out what his problem was when the ranger said there was a classic car club touring the park today and there were a lot of 1950s Chevys driving by.  He did eventually pull one over and the last we heard about it was him giving dispatch the driver’s license number.

I missed the beginning of this episode, but some park employee told dispatch that he was not going to do anything.  “That turkey looks like he is going to make it through the day”.

A 1930s car was broken down near The Sinks and was blocking one lane of the road.  The owner said it was just overheated and he could get it going again after it cooled down.  Dispatch wanted them to push the car off the road, but there was no room to do so. Dispatch told the reporting person to tell the driver that they would send a wrecker if he couldn’t get the car out of the road soon.

The campers in Site 6 had left a pot sitting on the log next to the fire ring. It was clean.

This group of four jolly hikers came off the trail to spend a night in the campground in Site 12.  They were college buddies from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.  They live widely separated now. Two of them had not seen each other in fifteen years.  They had planned to stay out until Thursday, but were exhausted.

We drove back to the Walgreen’s in Newport in the late afternoon to pick up Andy’s prescription.  Then we stopped in the Subway where Andy bought us each a soda and I did a send/receive of the email. I did not read the email there, but did note one from Sue, our neighbor in Marathon.  She said that Mac would be in the mountains today.  Darn, it was already late in the day and we missed him.

As we were driving along the Pigeon River on our return to Big Creek, a guy on a motorcycle passed us going the other way.  Andy said , “That guy on the motorcycle waved to us”. I had not mentioned the email to him and replied, “It’s Mac”.  Sure enough, I saw him turning around in the rear view mirror.  I pulled over in the parking lot for the raft and kayak launch and Mac pulled in behind us.  Andy was stunned.  How did I know it was Mac?

Mac had checked out our campsite in the woods and said we are in a beautiful place.  He had been driving around the mountain roads and went to Hot Springs today. Mac didn’t want to come back up to the campground because it looked as though it was going to rain and he needed to drive back to Asheville, an hour away. It was already late in the day and he also didn’t want to be driving at night.  We talked for a while until it looked as though the rain would start.  Mac headed to the interstate and we drove up the hill to Big Creek.

Maintenances Junior and Spence built this set of steps from the parking lot to the picnic area before the season began.

We put up the rope lights around our screen room this morning.  Then, we sat out there until after dark enjoying the atmosphere. They look a lot brighter in the picture than they actually are.

April 30, 2015 - Wildflowers

Thursday, April 30, 2015 – Big Creek

Andy was up early and figured out why we could not get a signal yesterday; the signal booster was not plugged in. He said it was 48 degrees outside when he got up this morning.

The first thing we heard on the park radio this morning was a report that the 350 (a bear) was running over the hill. We obviously missed the best part of that story.

Maintenance Spence was off work today; Thursday and Friday are his weekend. Boss Larry was in a training class so we did not see him either.

It is a one-mile walk for us to leave the motorhome, walk around the tent campground, check out Big Creek at the bridge, pass the motorhome and take the horse trail  to walk around the horse campground, and then back to the motorhome. We plan to do it three times a day to get in our three miles.

The sun was in and out behind small clouds for the morning walk. The leaves were wet from and early rain. It was brilliant. There was no sun as we walked up the road to the tent campground.

Yellow Trilliums are everywhere. Many of the leaves had been chewed on, but I found a number of bite-free ones. These were in the picnic area next to the creek.

Big Creek was a torrent by the tent campground. It was mostly white water behind the gnarly old tree.

I spotted so many wildflowers today, but have not looked them up to tell you what they are. This tiny violet-type thing was on the path by the creek.

This amazing yellow one was just a little farther along the path. Those are impossibly tiny flowers.

Here is the first of many pictures of the bridge over Big Creek you will see in May and June.

The gorgeous cluster was on the far bank of the creek.

I walked down to the water’s edge and took a picture of my scale model Andy on the bridge.

These, my favorite of the day, were also on the far bank.

On our way back to Sao from our morning walk around the campground, a car stopped by us and a man said that someone had left a backpack sitting in the parking lot. We walked past the cars blocking our view of it and saw the backpack sitting out by itself, not near any cars. Someone drove off without it. It was open and full of gear, so I zipped it up and handed it to Andy to carry. It was heavy. I planned to examine the contents for some identification when we got back to our campsite and report it to Dispatch. Just as we got to the sidewalk at the end of the parking lot, a car came speeding in, driving the wrong way in the one-way traffic circle. When he got near us, he held his arm out of the car and yelled, “That’s mine! That’s mine!”  Andy handed him the backpack and told him to slow down when he leaves. He said he was speeding to hurry back to retrieve his pack.

The horse camp is immaculate and ready for the season.

Andy laid out our plastic outdoor carpet and staked the corners. Then we set up our new screen room. It fits nicely over the picnic table. We were anxious to get it up as the gnats are swarming around our heads.

Spence had mentioned them yesterday and today we saw them for ourselves. There are a bazillion small brown grasshoppers here. That is no exaggeration; it’s an estimate. When we walked by them in the forest, their jumping in the dry leaves sounded like rain. We had not seen them here before, but this place is alive with them now. I mean grasshoppers in Biblical proportions.

At 1345, someone at Clingman’s Dome called dispatch (700) to report that it was snowing up there. It started raining here in Big Creek at 1400 and rained lightly for the rest of the day.

There was a mildly interesting conversation on the radio between two park employees.

“ You are leaving a lot of smoke behind you.”

“Yeah, this thing is using a quart of oil every three or four days. Your spotlight in on.”

“Thanks.”

Someone reported a tree down across a guardrail and asked for someone to come with a chain saw to remove it. Another person responded that he would send someone and, then a few minutes later, a third guy said he was on his way.

It was raining for the afternoon walk around, but I carried my umbrella and took pictures until it was too dark to get them in focus. This cluster of small white flowers is growing on the moss on a boulder lining the campground road.

 The Sweet Shrub is in bloom along the campground road too.

I took another, close up, for a better look.

The field of large boulders is green as ever.

We chatted with the campers huddled under their tarps to stay dry. Everyone seemed happy. It was getting colder so Andy stopped back in the motorhome to put on a sweatshirt under his raincoat. I saw this turkey on the horse trail while I waited outside.

It’s not the best picture ever, but it is better than my usual turkey butt.

At 1800, someone reported from Clingman’s Dome that the snow was starting to stick. At 1920, the park closed the road to Clingman’s Dome. There was ½ to ¾ of an inch at that point. A ranger called in tags for two cars parked there to see if they belonged to backpackers. Dispatch checked and both cars belonged to people who had registered for backcountry campsites for tonight so they didn’t have to worry about them driving out in the snow.

A woman was walking by our site as it was getting dark so Andy went out to see if she needed some directions. She said she was looking for a place to pitch her tent. Andy asked where she came from and she said she had walked from Georgia. Surely, not today. Then Andy told her where to find the tent campground.