SMOKIN’!

We traveled through miles of stimulus funds at work.  It seems every road in North Carolina is getting repaired at one point or another.  We’re in the town of Cherokee, surrounded by the Cherokee reservation.  Cherokee is the eastern entrance to the GSMNP.  Essentially, the park is a great blog of wilderness, accessible only by a bisecting road (we’re at one terminus) and various small nibbles around the edges.  The interior is virtually roadless, and makes for, we presume from the surroundings, great wilderness hiking.  The Appalachian trail goes through it.  We decided to ride the scoot round trip from the Cherokee side through the park to the western entrance, at Gatlinburg, about 32 miles each way.  First stop was the pioneer village at the east entrance, where they were having a special event, called “Women’s Work.”  Well, all right.  It turned out to be demonstrations of various crafts and regular chores done by 17th & 18th century women on the frontier, including making soap by boiling animal fat and lye.  Best of all, the homemade preserves.  We had a sample of these blackberries:  outstanding!

Just as we were getting ready for the scoot to Gatlinburg, the thunder rumbled, the skies opened up, and we sat under the porch roof of the visitor center until things cleared up.  Then off on the winding, climbing (and descending) road through the park, with great views

useful mileage markers

and challenging roadways.

But the most bizarre part of the trip was Gatlinburg itself.  Combine the worst of the Vegas Strip, Coney Island, and Fisherman’s Wharf and you get the schlock capital of the U.S., the ultimate tourist trap.  The town appears to be essentially a continuation of the road from the park, and as you emerge from the pristine, soothing, green world of the Smokies, you get gobsmacked with barely moving traffic, crowds of pedestrians, and outposts of every ripoff tourist attraction you can imagine: a Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a Ripley’s Aquarium (wha???), a Guinness Records, a Toussaud’s Wax Museum, Hollywood Star Cars, something with a King Kong paw hanging out a second floor window, etc. etc.  All this was crammed into a stretch of about 7 blocks.  It was truly the most godawful place I think I’ve ever seen.

We couldn’t wait to get back to the park entrance and make the return to Cherokee.  We pulled out at an overlook and were treated to RVing in the classic style:

We also visited the excellent Cherokee Museum, which tells the (again) tragic tale of white deceit, broken treaties, land-grabbing greed, slaughter, and exile of most of the Cherokee nation from these homelands via  the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.  A small band remained behind to sign a separate treaty and fight a legal battle which allowed them to remain on a small reservation, which is where present-day Cherokee is.  It’s truly depressing to be reminded of how we made a national policy of treachery in the name of manifest destiny.

Well, the only remedy for such feelings is to eat, right?  Fortunately, the next day was Father’s Day, and Loni whipped up a great breakfast of blueberry pancakes, bacon, fruit bowl and coffee, with the World Cup on the tube.  My tongue is just about to go slurp.  Oh, yes.

There’s an area of the park to the southeast, near Bryson City, called Deep Creek that boasts 3 waterfalls within easy hiking distance of each other.  That sounded like a good Sunday jaunt.  We scooted that way along a great road that bordered a fairly large river and had some great scenery.  We encountered the typical North Carolina incompetence with signage, but eventually found our way to a tiny back road that led to Deep Creek.  Can’t figure out why we had so much trouble finding it.  None of the other thousands of people there seemed to have.  Combine Father’s Day with 95 degree heat, 90 percent humidty, a cool tubing river amongst shady trees, and you’ve got a mob.

Trust me, the above is a very tiny example of the humanity that was everywhere.  Competing tube rental companies line the entry road, with “wavers” out front to entice you to patronize their businesses.  We had no place to secure our gear, and Loni was without a swim suit, so we had to pass on the tubing.  Instead we sweated gallons, traipsing around on ill-marked trails  (the N.C. signage disease again) to see thoroughly mediocre waterfalls.  We envied the tubers.

Having memorized the tortured roadways into the place, we backtracked without event to our site at Fort Wilderness RV Park and a gallon of water each.

The next morning we packed up and lit out for Tennessee, along US 19/74/64 towards Chattanooga, and it turned out to be one of the prettiest roads we’ve ever been on.  It paralleled a great whitewater river, and we pulled out to watch the kayaks and rafters go by, and talked with a couple that were waiting for their daughter and grandchildren to appear on the river.

 

This couple was local, but were transplants from Philadelphia.  This brings up something we noticed throughout N.C. and other states.  There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of gated upscale housing tracts scattered all throughout the area, filled presumably with retiree transplants from the northeast.  It’s like a dispersed Miami Beach, but in gorgeous mountain surroundings.  The houses would make any Californian drool with envy.  But, most are located way out in the sticks.  You gotta really love the country, or hate where you came from, to settle in.  There’s very little infrastructure anywhere.

Anyway, in search of better signage, we entered Tennessee to a dubious welcome.