Five
days we spent in The Great Smokey
Mountain National Park without Wi-Fi, cell service, sewer connection or
electricity (except for solar panels and the occasional generator.) We have stayed in the park before but this was
our first stay at Elkmont Campground. Aww...the peace and quiet. At night the
only sound was the rushing of water in Little River.
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| Little River |
After
sunset light came from campfires scattered throughout the campground or from
flashlights as campers trekked to the Porta-Potties. (ABN was grateful we
had our own facilities in The Wanderer.)
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| We will return! |
Elkmont
is located a few miles from Gatlinburg, but we were not at all tempted to visit
that world. (In fact, we have visited The GSMNP at least a dozen times over the
past 25 years but have been to the tourist town only once.) We prefer the quieter side of the Smokies.
After
a couple of nights at Elkmont, we moved to the more familiar campground at Cades
Cove where a couple of our good friends from home joined us.
Cades
Cove is a popular tourist destination in the park so it is not as quiet. The road
paving during the day added noise and congestion. Still the nights were very
dark and quiet. During the day we entertained ourselves with hikes (or walks, depending
on one’s definition of a hike),
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| "Does that mean us?" |
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| Abram's Creek |
and
a bike ride around the Cove. You may recall our posts from previous stays at
Cades Cove. Traditionally the cove is closed to motorists for a few hours on
Wednesday and Saturday mornings, providing a safe place to bicycle. That was
not the case this time. Closed most of
September for road repair; it reopened Tuesday afternoon with miles of traffic
waiting to get in and was open to motorists again on Wednesday morning. Wanting
to cycle the 11-mile cove but not deal with bumper-to-bumper traffic, we
elected to ride early in the morning. At day-break we saddled up and peddled
through the fog and the cool temperature.
We
applauded ourselves that not only could we still do this, but not one of us had
to walk the hills.
In
the evenings we sat around the campfire, telling retelling stories of
previous camping, hiking, and biking adventures; over the years, there were
many. If you are reading this and you were a part of those adventures, you can
bet your stories were told (and probably embellished a bit.)
Since
the sun doesn’t rise until around 7 a.m. and we usually wake around 4 or 5,
with no paper to read or social media, we started reading Bill Bryson’s The
Lost Continent. Not surprisingly, we
have different opinions of the book; Captain thinks it is hilarious, ABN thinks
Bryson traveled around our country searching for support for his biases. We
both agree, his travel experiences did not mirror ours.
Just to be clear, we did find a cell
signal at a high spot one day and on the last day of our stay we discovered
there was a guest Wi-Fi at the camp store, so we were able to do a couple of
quick checks for messages.
On
Friday Roger and Duncan headed home and we headed to a full-service campground in
Walland to do laundry and catch up with the real world. (Actually it was so
Captain could watch another disappointing A&M game.) After a week of really
good camp food, (thank
you, Bonita)
Roger and his wife, Jean, treated us to a delicious fried chicken dinner in
their beautiful mountain home.
We
were pleased to find the folks that own Dancing
Bear restaurant and lodge have replaced a really bad Italian restaurant in
Townsend.
There
we caught up with ABN’s cousin, Susie and husband Don.
After
lunch, we visited their beautiful mountain home for the last time as it was
recently sold. They will be spending time in their Kentucky home and promise to
visit us (if they can catch us at home.)
Folks
have asked us if, during our travels, there is any place to which we like to
return. The
answer is yes, there are a few. The map below will tell you that East Tennessee
is one of those places. Each color represents a trip in The Wanderer these past 6 years.
Moving
on toward Texas; without further distractions, we should arrive later this
week.
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