May 02, 2015 – Camping Oven

Saturday, May 02, 2015 – Big Creek

Two more campsites were filled after we made our walk-around yesterday. I adjusted the numbers on my census form this morning. Campsite 10 was rather smoky as we walked by.

I got a picture of their camp stove.

We had to move on because the smell of breakfast was driving Andy crazy.

We took the path along the creek to the bridge for a look at the creek before continuing on to the horse camp. It was a beautiful, clear, blue-sky day and we marveled over it at least once an hour. I took a few more yellow trillium pictures. Andy suggested I take one with the creek in the background. The only problem was standing back up; I should have had my walking stick with me.

Since the sun was shining, I went back to the large rock in the woods to get a better picture of the little spiky white flowers growing on it.

Here they are from the side. Of course, they were not in my Wildflowers of the Smokies book. They are about three or four inches tall.

Rather than taking the horse trail back to our campsite, we walked out of the horse campground onto Big Creek Road (that’s what I call it anyway). The road is in fairly good shape this year except for usual rutted curve down by the ranger station and the pot holes at the end of the one-lane bridge over Chestnut Branch.

I spent far too much time this morning trying to get on line and eventually gave up to fix dinner. I had told Spence on Wednesday to come here at 1400 today for some beef stew. I used the leftover pot roast and added some vegetables. Then I made a pan of biscuits to go with it. It was one of my better efforts at both.

Ranger Heath and Boss Larry showed up just before 1400 to empty the pay envelopes out of the iron ranger. Andy served them cookies, since they both refused beef stew. Heath had already eaten lunch and Boss Larry does not eat meat. They did sample the biscuits. Ranger Heath asked me if they were hard to make “or can any fool do it?” I assured him that any fool can.

Boss Larry is a Visitor Use Assistant. He takes care of us.

I told Ranger Heath that I had made the cookies for him since he would have to wait three weeks for Andy’s monthly birthday cake. He said he had cake last week for his own birthday. He had turned 48. His oldest son is graduating from high school this month.

Ranger Heath also announced that his wife Dana, the park’s Public Information Officer, was named Park Employee of the Year a few days ago. She is the one who recommended Big Creek to us as a place to volunteer in the park. If I ever get a phone signal, I’ll call and congratulate her.

After eating cookies and biscuits, Ranger Heath told Boss Larry that he needed a nap and Larry would have to drive his ranger truck back to Cosby. Boss Larry asked if he would be allowed to flash the lights and sound the siren. Then, he told of a time when he was riding with Ranger Jared and tried to talk on the car radio. He was calling Dispatch, who did not respond to his call. Then, Ranger Jared noticed that Larry was using the microphone for the exterior loud speaker and not the park radio. 
When they left, Ranger Heath was driving and said good-bye to us with the loud speaker.

We took the MiFi to the Verizon store in Newport, Tennessee in the late afternoon. The young man who served us said we were due for a new one anyway and replaced it with a newer Jet Pack. While he was looking at our account, he said we were also due for a new phone. We got another basic Samsung flip phone. He said the newer one had a better antenna. I was sorely disappointed when we got back home and still could not get a signal on the Jet Pack or the telephone. We were able to get on line last year sitting in the very same spot (when it wasn’t raining).

Ten of the twelve tent sites were occupied in the early evening. We chatted with everyone and handed out the Smokies Guide newspapers.

May 1, 2015 - Horse Camp

Friday, May 01, 2015 – Big Creek

Andy reported that the temperature was 47 degrees when he got up. It had warmed up to 48 by the time I got up.

At 0830, we heard a ranger on the radio calling dispatch to say that he saw a car driving very fast and passing on the winding mountain road, but he could not go after him because he was giving a ticket to a guy who was doing 65 in a 35 mile per hour zone. Are they crazy?  Of course they are! There are no wide, straight roads in the park. About eight minutes later another ranger pulled Sean Christian over for speeding again.

We heard several road crew people talking about putting “ice melt” on the roads and sidewalks at Clingman’s Dome. Then they decided it was safe to open the road.

We walked around the campground early this morning. I took this picture from the campground road. I decided that I should write a hot book about the park and call it Fifty Shades of Green.

We heard 118 calling dispatch to say that he was in the Greenbrier area and could hear a lot of gun fire. He knew he was near the park perimeter, but could not determine whether the gun fire was in the park or not. Dispatch called 422, Ranger Heath, to check it out. Some time later, we heard Ranger Heath report back that the gunfire was a church group having target practice outside the park.

I made an excellent stir-fry with the leftover pork loin from yesterday. I tried a trick someone had shared on Facebook. It was called Kitchen Hacks. The one I used was for peeling garlic. I put the whole bulb (well, what was left of it) in a jar and shook it hard for a minute or two. When I opened the jar, all the cloves were loose and peeled. Why didn’t I learn that trick 40 years ago?

Boss Larry stopped in to greet us and asked if we needed anything. It was good to see him again, but I forgot to take his picture. Larry and Kristen took a month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand . He said that when he was a marine in Cambodia, we was scheduled to go to Australia for R&R, but they sent him back to the U.S. instead. He told the sergeant that he didn’t want to go home, he wanted to go to Australia. So 45 years later, he finally did it. Uncle Sam did not pay for it though.

Maintenance Junior came over here from Cosby to check Big Creek on Spence’s day off. He stopped to chat with us for a few minutes. We talked about the improvements that he and Spence have made here since last year. Big Creek is looking good. Junior said he has worked in the park for 16 years and has never seen the likes of these little brown grasshoppers. He wasn’t exaggerating either; he said there are zillions of them. I forgot to take of picture of Junior too.

I decided to make some cookies in the afternoon and they were a complete culinary disaster. I don’t know what I did wrong except put the dough too close together. I spread out into very thin cookies and melded together. They were chocolate chip, pecan, and raisin. It was a big mess, but they tasted delicious. I put the last two batches in a pan and baked them as bars. We haven’t cut those up yet.

The tent campground had two people in each of six sites. We enjoyed walking around and chatting with everyone. One couple from San Francisco had come to the motorhome earlier looking for the campground. They had just finished hiking the Benton MacKaye Trail from the beginning in Georgia. Last year they had canoed the entire length of the Mississippi River. That’s a bit over 2,000 miles. The two men in Site 10 had a propane camp stove I had never seen before. It had two burners on top and a two-shelf oven beneath. He said he calls it his Easy Bake Oven.

I took these pictures of Big Creek from the bridge. This one is downstream.

This one is upstream.

There were two women in the horse camp with two horses. One of them is towing  a 32-foot RV/horse trailer and she was talking about how hard it was to cross the one-lane bridge. I agreed and said the big boulder is the worst part. Their two horses watched us coming from way up the trail.

I don’t remember the fence around the horse water trough.

When I inspected it closely, I realized that it is creek water running through it. I couldn’t follow the pipe, but think the faucet is tapped into the creek up the hill. The pipe at the center back pours the water back into the creek, which can be seen in the background through the fence. This creek runs into Big Creek.

I have not been able to get on line for two days. The MiFi is blinking magenta and green, which is not normal. We are going to take it into the Verizon store in Newport to get it looked at. It is frustrating as I had intended to post this stuff on my Big Creek blog.