GM Tour; Armadillo Sushi? 911 in Downtown Chicago! A Navy Groundhog Day

We departed the Detroit area and headed to Indiana to visit a battlewagon shipmate of mine from USS IOWA (BB-61), retired Master Chief Dale Hilliard. Dale is now a nurse at the sprawling General Motors truck assembly plant in Fort Wayne, and took us there during a driving rainstorm on Wednesday for a tour. What an amazing place! It's the first time I've ever seen a big assembly line; Suzanne had been to an RV motor coach plant a couple of years ago, but it wasn't nearly as large. At this plant, 3,700 workers and staff build 1,500 Chevy and GMC trucks on three shifts every day of the year. We arrived during one of two 20 minute breaks, and it was relatively quiet; then the line started up, and it mutated to something akin to a very loud automated ballet.


Starting with a bare frame, a truck gradually appeared, with some robotic elements like windshield installations, but mostly hundreds of men and women at assigned stations installing everything from instrument panels to brake lines to radios,  tires and fenders. Quarter ton trucks were mixed in with half ton and 3/4 ton bodies, with computer-run delivery of the correctly mated and painted sections and parts. Fork lifts carrying parts and removing empty bins raced around as if they were on tracks, but they were actually driven by skilled operators who knew the plant floor better than their own bedrooms at home. The average worker has only 42 seconds to complete his or her task as the gradually loaded frame moves steadily past their posts. It was a fascinating visit, and I may be ready to buy a half ton Chevy truck... if I can only figure out how to shoehorn it into our Florida garage...



After our tour, it was time for dinner. Dale's wife Becky was babysitting their three year old grandson Rowan, so had to take a pass, but Dale suggested we stop at the Neon Armadillo road house restaurant; Dale assured us that we would find the fried armadillo really yummy. Being a sensitive, New Age kinda guy, I could feel My Lovely Bride's stomach already rebelling at the thought, but she is a trooper - in the Navy, when you're in a foreign country, camel hump and monkey meat are often on the menu... how bad could armadillo be? We rolled up into the Neon Armadillo's parking lot, and there were only two cars there. "Great, we'll get a good table." Then Dale steered his GM HHR around the building to a full parking lot in front of Sapporo Sushi! I could hear Suzanne's unspoken "HALLELUJAH!" over Dale's laughter... we had a fabulous meal; the servers even wore kimonos, a very nice touch. (You don't meet many blondes named Heather wearing kimonos in Japan.)

Dale also took us to a Hoosier winery, the Country Heritage Vineyard, and presented us with a very nice Cabernet that I am enjoying as I write... who knew that the state that produces wheat, corn and soybeans also has well-regarded vineyards? (I have to make one comment on our attire... you may notice that we are all wearing fleece and/or windbreakers. The temperature outside was 44F, and it was raining. Back home we call this a raw, cold, miserable day. Dale must have thought we were wusses, because he actually had air conditioning on at his house, to reduce the humidity! When we left the next morning, having parked right next to Dale and Becky's house, he brought out a bag with brown eggs and venison summer sausage (there's breakfast and lunch!) Thanks, Dale, for a wonderful visit.

We had a relatively short 4 hour drive from LaOtto to the Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois... so we thought. Our GPS person, Jill, was given all our dimensions (23 tons, 62 feet long, 13 feet high, 9 feet wide), so as to route us around minor obstacles like 10 foot underpasses and wooden bridges designed for horses and sheep. In spite of our inputs, on the approach to Chicago, Jill directed us onto an Expressway that emptied onto Lake Shore Drive, an automobile-only artery that leaves a huge RV driver stranded on the wrong (i.e., "low") side of numerous train tracks. When we tried to turn to get outside of the city, 12' 6" bridges kept blocking our way. The choice was to keep driving deeper into the city or knock off our three roof air conditioners. We finally arrived at a one lane, one way street with parked cars on both sides. Pedestrians looked at our coach like we were from another planet. I could hear them thinking, "Where the heck did those guys come from... Florida?"

The stress level was rising for both of us, but thankfully Rudy and Gretchen were keeping their cool very nicely. I kept muttering, "ISN'T THIS INTERESTING?", and it actually seemed to help. Nevertheless, I asked My Lovely Bride to call for police assist. It was too hard looking up a non-emergency number, so for the first time ever, we called 911. The dispatcher answered, heard our plea for assistance, and said, "It doesn't sound like an emergency." Suzanne muttered, "If we stop traffic in downtown Chicago, it will be an emergency!" I wondered if Mayor Rahm Immanuel would send one of his personal troopers out to give us a hand... Then the dispatcher gave us the number for the Traffic Clearance desk. A nice cop asked where we were, and Suzanne told him... he replied, "You can't be on Lake Shore Drive... you'd have been arrested by now!" (Yeah, well, we had already passed three squad cars without comment, flashing lights or even a request for a donation for the upcoming Policemen's Ball.) He gave us directions to follow (six different turns that finally got us to I-90) that were flawless, and I offered to buy him a beer. Even with his expert directions, there were several very tight turns on narrow metropolitan streets with our long rig, but it all went well. I knew we were safe when we started seeing 7-11's instead of wall-to-wall brick row houses...


We finally arrived at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, after losing only an hour on our "Scenic Tour" of the Windy City. It has warmed up here, a balmy 48F with only 30 knots of wind; we're expecting 36F tonight! Our poor little Gretchen was shivering on her w-a-l-k, and we will have to look for fleece jackets for her and Rudy; those were left at home because "Who expected this bitterly cold weather in mid-May?" We have stayed here before, and last year we arrived to a flooded campsite (assigned by a bureaucratic lady in an office far removed from the CG) with lots of empty spots that were not flooded... Suzanne drove up, spoke to the lady, and heard, "Oh, that's not possible; those sites don't flood; in any case, it's too bad, because even though you'll be here for five days, someone has assigned other visitors to those spaces on Friday or Saturday, so you can't have any of them." That was last year; today, we arrived at our campsite, found only 5 of 20 sites occupied, and all but two of the remaining sites flooded (we're only 50 feet from Lake Michigan, and it's been raining for days.) Suzanne drove up to the office, found the same lady, and had the exact same conversation as she had last year... "Sorry, even though there's no one there, you're assigned to site 15, it can't be flooded, that site never floods, that's your assigned site, and you can't ask for another site..." Can you say, "Groundhog Day"?

Ft. Boonesborough; Cities; Wright-Pat; USAF Museum; Tornado Warning; Farmington Hills Event

On Friday morning we departed the Smokies and headed north through Knoxville. The mountains of Tennessee gave way to the bluegrass of Kentucky, and as Suzanne drove through heavy rain, I looked for a campground. "Hey, here's a great state park - Fort Boonesborough, just south of Lexington, and I'm a Daniel Boone fan!" We had outrun the rain and arrived in our campground to get the last pull-through, meaning that we didn't have to disconnect the car. That was the good news. The bad news was that the rain was still heading our way, but we were already snug in our coach, pitying the poor folks in tents who had thought they were going to have a pleasant weekend in the woods. (Unfortunately, the rain continued, and we were unable to visit the fort the next day.)








Boone was the prototypical early frontiersman and adventurer. He punched a rough road through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains, leading a small group of pioneers into what would become Kentucky (this painting of that event is by George Caleb Bingham, one of the greatest American artists of the 19th Century). He had ten children, two of whom were killed by Indians, and his daughter was kidnapped by them, but Boone led a successful party to rescue her two days later. At one point he himself was captured for a period and adopted by the Shawnee tribe.

Boone had purchased the land for Boonesborough from a Cherokee chief at Sycamore Shoals. He and his men built a small fort here in 1775. It consisted of 26 cabins and four blockhouses for protection against Indians and eventually the British. During the Revolutionary War, our former colonial masters fomented war between the Indians and the Americans. (Those pesky Brits just couldn't get over the original Tea Party refusing to pay King George's taxes...) Fort Boonesborough was then attacked by a large force of Shawnees and a few Brits and French Canadians in what was named "The Great Siege".

From Kentucky we moved on to Dayton, Ohio, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We arrived on a Saturday, and driving around the base we saw not a single person in uniform (although we did see four groundhogs). This was bizarre for us, both retired naval officers, because on Navy bases, most sailors live aboard ship, so even on weekends, our bases would be filled with sailors. In the Air Force, many, if not most, of the airmen live off base, so the streets here at Wright-Pat were deserted. It was like we had fallen into a set of The Twilight Zone.





We decided to go visit the Air Force Museum, but that was off base. To get there, we let electronics guide us. "Big Mistake". Jill, the woman who lives inside our GPS, was not aware that here at Wright-Pat, not only were most of the gates to the outside world closed on weekends; they even locked internal gates to prevent people from moving from one side of the base to the other! This was very strange. After we found the third locked inside gate blocking our route, My Lovely Bride said in a loud voice, "Isn't that interesting!" (or words to that effect). I thought about speeding up to 80 and blasting through the gate like a boss of mine did in 1973 (he actually made Admiral later), but decided that meeting Base Security Forces and their K-9 assistants might delay us.







The Air Force Museum was AMAZING! Three of the largest hangers in the world house hundreds of aircraft (from the Wright Brothers to today) and thousands of exhibits. You can stand under a B-52 BUFF (called a Big Ugly Fat Fellow by pilots of sleek fighters), admire a SR-71 Blackbird, or study a life-size diorama of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, complete with B-25.









Here is My Lovely Bride standing beside a B-1 Lancer strategic bomber; it is HUGE! We had a great time, and it was capped off with a 3D Imax movie, Fighter Pilot, which shows two weeks at Red Flag, the Air Force's version of Top Gun on steroids, where 128 aircraft conduct simulated and live fire air-to-air and air-to-ground combat training missions.








We departed Dayton and headed for our next stop outside Detroit. After crossing the state line, we understood the huge billboard's message: "Fix Michigan's Roads!" They were pretty bad; in fact, our full length mirror broke during the trip over I-75's washboard section. Our campground here is what I would call minimalist: for $37/day, you get a grass parking place with electricity; there is no drinking water to hook up to in the entire campground. But it is uncrowded; of 130 or more spots, there are only three taken - ours, the camp host's, and one guy in a semi-permanent tent.



On Monday evening, we had sushi with our good friends Jan and Peter from The Villages. Jan suggested coming here, and put out the word among her many spiritual friends to come hear Suzanne's talk. They live about 30 minutes west, but because of the terrible weather, we were unable to visit their lovely home.








In fact, just before arriving in the area, we had to pull off the highway to avoid the passage of a tornado warning area; here's the radar presentation, with the blue dot being us. There was torrential rain and high winds for a couple of hours, and we were glad to be safely past that experience.

On Tuesday evening, Suzanne gave her Making the Connection presentation at Unity of  Farmington Hills to another large, very enthusiastic community, many of whom said, "I'm not sure even how I found you, but I needed to hear this!" Thanks to Rev. Barbara for her hospitality at UFH.

Bear Bag; Rooshins! The A.T.; Pad Ty? Serious Backpackers; No Giardia for Me! A Dryad by Any Other Name? You Forgot What?

(Yesterday's post left Ty at his backcountry campsite in Smoky Mountain National Park awaiting several neighbors...)

So, the shadows are lengthening even farther, and I had just finished a gourmet meal, and it was time to hoist the food... wait, aren't you supposed to hoist a glass of wine? Well, in polite society, yes, but in the Smokies, you hoist your food... that means you tie it to a 20 foot length of parachute cord (nylon line) and throw your food bag over a tree limb at least 10 feet above the ground, then hoist your food bag to the high tree limb, where supposedly a hungry black bear won't find it. There are several problems with this tactic: (1) bears are smarter than humans; (2) a bear's sense of smell is superb, although not nearly as good as that of our fierce miniature Dachshunds, Rudy and Gretchen (AKA respectfully as "Elvis" and "Ten Pounds of Fighting Fury"); (3) if the bear smells your food bag, and can't get to it, the bear may be so P.O.'ed that he eats the smug backpacker in his tent in reprisal (just kidding). Oh, well, the Park Rules say you must hang your food, so I put all my dehydrated food, snack bars, GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts), M&Ms and even toothpaste in the green bag and hoisted it up a nearby beech tree. I thought about leaving the toothpaste out on a log, because bears who eat people food (or people themselves) instead of berries and tofu often develop gum disease and cavities... but I digress... the food was now up the tree, so to speak.


As the sun sets, I do some yoga to keep my lower back muscles stretched out. Contrary to some fundamentalist beliefs that yoga is the Devil's way of capturing innocents' minds, I find that it keeps me loose, although I admit to being less than religious in my observance of this excellent workout. (This photo and the one above were taken with my Olympus XZ-1 pocket camera's self-timer; I had to reassure My Lovely Bride that Bambi the Buxom Blonde Bimbo did not accompany me on this trip.) The only bambis out here were young whitetail deer, none of which I sighted, though I saw lots of hoof prints...






Okay, it's almost dark, and none of the neighbors whom the Park Service guy said would be here have arrived. I am elated, because instead of eight 20-something horsemen drinking ice cold beer from their saddlebags and playing Def Leppard until 0300, I have birds, the occasional wild boar, and perhaps a snorting black bear to serenade me. The birds were out in force until dark, I may have heard a wild boar, but no bears appeared; just as well, because my can of bear spray cost $50, and I didn't want to waste it on a pitiful 500 lb. black bear when I could save it for a 1,500 lb. grizzly out in Montana.




Oh, what's this about wild boars, you ask? Was that a guffaw I heard? Well, here's the real poop, so to speak... It seems that in 1912, a wealthy businessman had imported a bunch of huge, tusked Russian boars for his hunting lodge at Hooper's Bald in North Carolina. Surprisingly, the boars escaped and found some local girl pigs to mate with. (You see this coming, right?) Today, wild hybrid boars (Sus scrofa), called "Rooshins" and "Tush hogs" by the locals, roam the Smokies, eating the choicest flowers, grubs and worms in the backcountry, ripping up the trails where the most tender vittles can be found, and leaving piles of pig poop in sight of the tourists; they have mostly been eliminated outside the park, but inside the protected no-hunting area, they are "pigging out". This isn't my photo... these pigs can be very aggressive, and I wouldn't want to ask one to pose for a snapshot!




The Park Service had to hire poachers, of all things, to hunt the boars, but they still have an active presence up in the mountains, as frequent rooted-up sections of trail proved to this casual observer. In India, wild boars are dangerous even to adult tigers who make the mistake of trying to acquire a fresh pork lunch. I think this is one of the grubs that the boars eat, but worms were never one of my strong points... in any case, I didn't try it as a snack. Guess I wouldn't be a good candidate for the next episode of "Survivor".

I had a restless night, not because of any fear of Rooshins or black bears, but because my shoulder was hurting like the devil. Seems I may have inherited my mother's bursitis, an inflammation of the bursa, the fluid-filled sac that sits between the shoulder joint and the clavicle. (It got better in the morning after a heavy dose of Naproxen.) After a breakfast of Starbucks Via and granola, I struck camp and loaded my backpack for a 15 mile day. My goal was the Derrick Knob Shelter on the Appalachian Trail, west of Sams Gap (this is not a Wal-Mart-sponsored clothing store, but a saddle or notch in a ridge). The trail up on the ridgeline was more traveled than my access trail, since there are hundreds of A.T. "thru-hikers" making the annual pilgrimage from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine, at this time of year.




I could have spent the night there with 10-12 other A.T. hikers, but opted for the camp less populated. Two and a half hours after breaking camp, I arrived at the shelter. There were two 20-something studly guys about to depart, having stopped for lunch on their 5 day trip on the A.T. The shelter has two wood sleeping platforms, a roof and three sides, and that's about it. They are usually located near springs so that hikers can keep hydrated and cook.








Speaking of cooking, I was getting hungry... I set up my ultra-lightweight Esbit fuel tab stove and set to boiling 2 1/4 cups of water for my dehydrated Pad Thai. (Did I forget to mention that some of these backpacking dinners are really quite exotic?) There were even packets of peanut butter and peanuts to add in, making a great high-protein meal for a starving backpacker. Suzanne had convinced me to take this particular meal because it contained about 1,000 calories. She is very smart... it got me through a very long day afoot.







While I was eating, two women hiked in from the south. Lest you think this is all a man's sport, Cathy from Connecticut and Merry from Sodus, NY, were out for six weeks on the A.T., heading for Damascus (Virginia, not Syria). Cathy is a retired video production professor and Merry still works as a medical researcher. We discussed video production (in particular Messages of Hope) and backpacks (Merry and I had the same Osprey Exos model). I felt a bit of a wuss, being out just for a couple of days, but you do what you have the time for... "One day...." 








You may notice that Merry is wearing flip-flops in the photo above. Those are not for hiking, but for airing your feet out on a break. Here are my hiking boots on that same break, and I change socks and powder my feet every hour to keep them dry and (try to) prevent blisters. I only had one after 20 miles...










On the trip down from the A.T., I stopped several times to admire wildflowers, many of which have their peak blooms in late April/early May. The white one is White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum, or wakeroot), and the blue, well, your guess is as good as mine.

I have mentioned food twice, but what about water? Unlike on my desert trip last December, there were plenty of water sources around here in the Smokies. Unfortunately, almost all are affected by a nasty little critter called Giardia lamblia that gives you severe intestinal problems. Even this beautiful spring-fed stream might harbor bad bugs invisible to the naked eye.

 
To avoid this, when I ran out of water from The Coach, I took out my handy-dandy hand-pump water filter and filled up one water bottle at a time (I carry three). It took about a minute and a half to filter 18 oz. of cold spring water, now (hopefully) Giardia-free. I won't know if I was successful for another week or two, but this method hasn't failed me in the past. Knock on wood...








I hiked for several hours down from the A.T. to the trail heading for the parking area where Suzanne had dropped me off. Since I was running early for our 1630 (4:30 PM) "date", I stopped at this miniature waterfall for 15 minutes of R&R (rest and relaxation in Navy terms, and maybe some meditation in spiritual terms). It was a truly beautiful spot; no people around, just moss-covered rocks, rushing water and solitude.

After my R&R, I shouldered my pack for the final leg of my trip. Within 20 minutes, and still almost an hour from our rendezvous, I was shocked to see a lovely Wood Nymph walking toward me! Those versed in Classical Greek mythology know that Wood Nymphs were also known as Dryads, or female tree spirits, normally of oak trees, of which there are an abundance in the Smokies.









Was I going to get lucky and be taken home by this scantily dressed apparition? (I sincerely hoped so!) The smile on my face may have given me away....

On the 45 minute hike back to the car, the Wood Nymph (AKA My Lovely Bride) asked me how I had enjoyed the trip, and whether I had taken everything I needed. I replied, "Well, actually, there was one thing that I had forgotten when I changed out my large first aid kit for the smaller one... I left behind the T.P." She burst out laughing, and asked, "Ty, what did you do?" "Well, there was no Sears catalog out there...."  

Not Just Another Dusty Gravel Road; Buff-lies! One's a Crowd; A Small Platypus

(When we last left Ty, he was preparing for a two day backpacking trip in Smoky Mountain National Park, while Suzanne would hold down the fort, AKA The Coach, with ferocious guard dogs Rudy and Gretchen, and give a couple of readings ...)


I've been a backpacker since my Boy Scout days a few years back, and if I only had one activity to choose from, this would be it. I have never regretted a single day in the backcountry. This was to be a moderate-to-strenuous, 20 mile two day excursion to Marks Cove (Campsite #28 in the Park Service computer) on the Middle Prong Trail, Lynn Camp Prong Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and the Greenbrier Ridge Trail. There would be about 3,300 feet elevation gain from the trailhead to the A.T., which runs along the highest ridges of the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine. Suzanne drove me down a gravel road three miles south of the Great Smoky Mountain Institute, an environmental education center. But this was no dull, boring gravel road... it follows the Middle Prong of the Little River, one of the prettiest mountain streams you could ever hope to visit.
 



I wasn't sure we would ever get to the end of the road, because My Lovely Bride wanted to enjoy the river views with me before dropping me off. I couldn't blame her; this was an unspoiled paradise, with only one fly fisherman and a couple taking pictures sharing a mile of river with us. I could tell she appreciated this place as much as I...









We were surprised to encounter scores of butterflies, mostly Monarchs and black Swallowtails, along the road. (Yes, we stopped the car again...) It was obviously peak season for these spectacular creatures.











We arrived at the trailhead, where I cinched up my backpack, scratched MLB behind the ears, and gave Rudy and Gretchen farewell kisses (or was it the other way around???) Across the bridge, and turning to wave goodbye, I thought to myself, "Suzanne, thank you for understanding how much I love this..."

 The trail rose steadily uphill, following the Middle Prong (like in a fork) for four miles, not always alongside the stream, but usually close enough to hear the rushing waters. I was glad to be here in Spring when the rivers are still at a moderately high level; in August, river levels are lower and their voices much reduced. With lots of annual rainfall, the Smokies are cleaved by dozens of rivers, branches, creeks and prongs. Rainfall varies considerably with elevation, the lowlands receiving about 55 inches annually and the mountaintops, like Clingman's Dome, getting as much as 85 inches. This makes for a very lush, verdant forest.

I hiked past the remains of a chimney about two miles up the trail, near Lynn Camp Prong Falls. As the Park Service volunteer mentioned the day before, there used to be logging here, as late as the 1940s. This may have been the site of a cabin used by the loggers to support their work before the national park was established. It may also have supported members of the Civilian Conservation Corps; the CCC built many of the trails in our national forests and parks, also providing essential employment for thousands of men during the Depression.

Being a Luddite in many technological areas, I eschewed carrying a GPS, and so was following my topographic map and compass, but trail signs are also handy reminders of which fork in the road to take. Fortunately for those not carrying map and compass, every junction was well-marked, and it would be less easy to get lost here than in more open country out west.

For one thing, the undergrowth is so heavy here that there is nowhere to take off cross-country, unless you were a masochist or totally nutzo. You would need a very sharp machete (or better, a motorized Bush Hog) to rip your way more than a few feet through the rhododendron, honeysuckle, mountain holly, elder, deerberry, sweetshrub, elderberry, and 75 other varieties of shrubs and bushes that reduce even visual distances to less than a hundred feet.

The down side of this thick undergrowth is that if you did happen to get disoriented and fall off the trail, a search party would have a heck of a time finding you. By the way, this is a wide part of the trail that is shared use; both foot and equestrian travel is permitted here, but no mountain bikes. Pure foot trails are generally much narrower.

After three hours of hiking uphill, I had gained a couple of thousand feet and six miles on the trail, and arrived at my designated campsite. The backcountry office guy had said there was still some space here, and he was right. There were 5 or 6 campsites, and every one was empty. Okay, maybe I'm the first to arrive, so since it was "first come, first served", I did what anyone would do... I picked the Primo Site, right next to the Lynn Camp Prong of the Little River, which here was only about 10 feet wide, and fordable in most places. Here's a view of my campsite, after I set up my tent, with the stream in the background. It was very private, and I only worried that my future campsite neighbors would be up to all hours partying, since most hikers out here are in their 20s. Also, there was a hitching area about 100 yards away, so there could also be horse packers here with stock, and we all know what big carousers horse people are. (Yes, Jan and Bob, that comment was for you!)
 


I appreciated this rock cairn placed in the stream at a lovely spot near my tent. What a place to meditate. I sat on a log at the water's edge for a half hour or so clearing my mind, then thinking deep thoughts. None come to mind at the moment, but they were very, very deep. (Actually, one just popped to mind... would I see bears tonight?)

I fixed dinner, a delightful bag of freeze-dried beef stroganoff with a passable Platypus Cabernet. (What, you've never heard of that vineyard? Actually, a Platypus is the brand name of my plastic water bottles that fold flat as a pancake to save space when empty. I have large ones for water and a very small one for a glass or two of wine. Hmmm, I'll have to ask MLB when I return why she suggested those sizes for those liquids, rather than the opposite...) By then the shadows were lengthening, and the fading sunlight was creeping up the trees. Where were my neighbors? Lost? Eaten by bears? Attacked by wild boars? Come back tomorrow for the thrilling finale...

Too Young to Judge? Unwanted Leaves? Cades Cove; Where's My Mule? Weigh-In

I love Tennessee. The people are friendly, the hospitality gracious and the scenery beautiful. But there is one thing that disturbs me. They make the kids grow up too quickly here. We have all heard the stories of child brides, married off at 14 to some old 60 year-old codger back in the hills. Well, I saw a sign that they are even sending teenagers to Law School. Here's proof...









This entry is for my good friend Shelby back in The Villages. The last time I saw Shelby, he was bemoaning the fact that evil gas-powered automobile drivers were parking in the few spots in town "Reserved for Noble Electric Vehicle Owners" because there were recharging plugs located there for their short-range cars. Shelby, I have good news for you. Here in Townsend, TN, there are lots of empty parking spots and plugs reserved for electric cars. In this parking lot, there are also eight brand new, unused, unlicensed, dust- and pollen-covered, all-electric Nissan Leafs (or would "Leaves", "Left-Behinds", or "Left-Overs" be more correct?) I guess here in Al Bore's home state... (I'm sorry, is it "Gore"?)... it appears that electric cars are not nearly as popular as pick-me-up trucks. Heck, where would you hang your shotgun?

The main reason for my selecting Townsend over the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area was that this is the quiet side of the Smokies. It's also the closest public campground to Cades Cove, one of the prettiest  spots you could ever imagine. Cades Cove was first settled in the 1820s, although Cherokee Indians had been hunting here for years before the Scots-Irish and English arrived to start farming. An 11-mile loop drive in this verdant valley takes you past beautifully preserved cabins, churches, barns and a grist mill. On our first visit, we drove at a sedate 7 mph pace because of the long line of turistas visiting from across the country. There must have been several hundred cars driving almost nose-to-tail on the entire loop road. There had to be a better way...

We wanted to have a more personal, private tour, so on Wednesday morning, we were up with the sun to ride the loop on our bikes, since the road is closed to cars until 10:00 AM (only on Wed and Sat). Hikers and cyclists have the road to themselves for three hours. This is a better view than miles of cars, don't you think? And yes, that is Corvette Chick in the distance, barreling down a steep grade... No Ninnies here!






Cades Cove is truly lovely, especially in the early morning or late afternoon. It has been beautifully preserved, and other than the road itself, there are almost no signs that you are in the 21st Century...

And here are the city folks who just bought their first farm; all he has to do is download the app on how to use a plow and mule...

Seriously, though, you have to admire the settlers who moved here with nothing, built their homes and barns with their own hands, raised crops and families, and lived a quiet, pastoral life without all of the hub-bub of the cities... Cades Cove had a population of 271 at its peak in the 1840s.

After our bike ride, we returned to The Coach for my final preps for a two-day backpacking trip up into the mountains. I hadn't been out overnight since my trip to Withlacoochee Forest last month, and I was looking forward to trying out my new backpack and sleeping bag. (I am easily excited.) Due to the popularity of backcountry camping here in Smoky Mountain National Park, I was required to make a campsite reservation. The day before, I had called the number, and gotten a friendly Park Service volunteer who sounded a few years older than I. When I gave him my route and desired campsite, he said in a smooth Tennessee drawl, "Yep, we've got room there for one more hiker. You'll like that site - it's real purdy; I stayed there doin' some loggin' back before there was a park." That was more than a few years ago... I wasn't keen about being in a nearly-full campsite in the wilderness, but beggars can't be choosers. I loaded my pack and checked the weight with our bathroom scale, and it was right where I wanted it, at 28 lbs. (You can see by this picture that My Lovely Bride prefers a slightly different level of "camping"; although she loves to get her boots muddy on a day hike, she will sacrifice and stay behind in The Coach with the puppies, since dogs are not allowed on park trails.) Suzanne asked whether I had everything on my checklist, and I said confidently, "Of course!" (Note to self: Always trust a paper checklist over your memory...")  Stay tuned for the rest of the story....