Iron City Adventure

Evening, Campers!

Silver Cliche' here again writing to you tonight from yet another US Army Corps of Engineers campground (thank you fellow taxpayers!). If you've been following us on our journeys, you know by now that US Army Corps of Engineers means one thing to us... Water! And tonight's water is the Shenango River Reservoir between Pittsburgh and Erie, PA.

Like many of you, I reached a certain age at the time of the Viet Nam War. Yes... I had a draft card. No... I didn't burn it. No... I can't find it among the souvenirs of that era of my life that have become less and less important over the years. I hope the Federal Government doesn't come knocking and remind me that it was my civic duty and solemn pledge to carry that card on my person for the rest of my life. Anyhow... The prospect of being called for government service at that time generally meant a stint in the Army. Among my contemporaries that was not considered a healthy prospect. College dorm room conversations on the subject included discussion of relocation to Canada, or (as Donald Trump did) reminding the draft board that while your physical deficiencies were not significant enough to degrade your squash game, they certainly would endanger any other soldiers who were forced to be in a combat platoon with your debilitated ass. So, if I had known that time spent in the Army could have included being stationed at places like Shenango River Reservoir (or Lake Lanier, GA or Milford Lake, KS or....) I would have enlisted and supplied my own Airstream! Clearly, the Army needs a better PR team to highlight the recreation opportunities it provides.

So, how did we get here? Well, the morning broke gray and wet back at Bulltown Camp on Burnsville Lake (yep.. more Army fun!). Although we had no internet then, I do now and can report that the historic area adjacent to the campground where we stayed is the site of an 1863 battle... maybe "skirmish" better describes it... or even just "raid". At that time the Union Army controlled central West Virginia and had a makeshift fort of 400 soldiers camped there to guard a bridge crossing the river that the US Army dammed in 1976 to make a place for us to camp. One morning at dawn, the Confederates attacked the fort with 800 soldiers. By evening there were 8 Confederate and no Union soldiers dead and the Rebels had retreated. It was their last attempt at dislodging the Union Army from central West Virginia. Now, at a time in history when Americans can camp in their travel trailers in lakefront spots for a few bucks a night and tour the country on cheap gas while many other parts of the world are topsy turvy, this is a place to remind us of a time when we were a country in turmoil and the price we paid then as a nation to live the way we do now. Thanks to the folks who preserve these memories and places for us.

We made ourselves road-ready and hit the highway by about 9:30. The GPS took us the fastest route. The roads were narrow and a bit rough. The scenery was "Deliverance" gloomy. I was looking at each porch and stump to see if there was a toothless boy with a banjo playing "da dee dum dum dum dum dum dum dum" and waiting for a reply. Fortunately, there was none. We saw another Airstream (a surprisingly rare event) that was parked next to a hay barn and evidently being used as a chicken coup. We averted our gaze and drove on. When we reached I-79 we took the north option and saw signs that said "Wheeling" and eventually "Pittsburgh".

By 11:00 it was raining. No, that's not quite right. It was pouring. We frequently travel with the two large vents (known as "fantastic fans" after the company that makes them) and the two smaller dome vents in the bathroom and shower open. The fantastic fans are sophisticated contraptions that sense temperature and turn themselves on (or off) in response. They also sense rain and close completely. The dome vents are pop up covers over raised pipes. There is so little room around them that they don't need the same sophistication as the fantastic fans. Today, I wish they had that sophistication. When we stopped for gas the bathroom floor and counter were both covered with rain water. No damage done... evaporation took care of the cleanup... but another item for the mental checklist and another "I'll never to that again" moment.

We needed to restock some food items and since leaving Maryland have missed Trader Joe's. They are just moving into Florida, but the nearest one is 90 minutes from home. Guess what they have in Pittsburgh that was a candidate to fill our pantry and scratch our nostalgic itch? Trader Joe's! We set a new course to fill a gap in a rainy day.

At this point I need to tell you about Pittsburgh and about GPS. Pittsburgh is a gritty city. It's a tough city. Its a hilly city. It's an old city... a very old city compared to places we've lived or the routes we usually travel. The roads of Pittsburgh and it's near suburbs like Upper St. Clair and Bethel Park appear to be unchanged from the time Hupmobiles and Stanley Steamers roamed the earth. Now about GPS. If your phone is like mine it has four GPS settings: walking, car, public transit (the bus icon does not mean you're driving a bus... It means you're paying to be in the back of one) and an airplane. It does not have an Airstream mode, or even an 18 wheeler or big-ass vehicle mode. It thinks we are in a Camry or Kia. We are not. My GPS took us on side streets, curvy roads, narrow intersections and all manner of 100 year old pavement that Pittsburgh has to offer. I frequently drive by alternating looks forward to see what's coming and in the wide trailer mirrors to give myself early notice if I'm about to place an insurance claim. This trip took maximum advantage of that skill especially as it related to street signs and mailboxes that may, or may not, have crossed the plane of the white lines on the side of the road. At one point we were headed for a bridge that supported train tracks overhead. The bridge itself was a concrete arch. In other words it was much taller over the center of the roadway than at the two edges. The yellow diamond-shaped sign that was placed 50' before the bridge had a bold, black up and down arrow and the figure 11'0". It was obvious that this bridge had been struck on its outer corners many times by vehicles. Here's today's math quiz question, students: if you are approaching a bridge whose clearance is defined by a half circle which forms it's top, and some Department of Transportation wiz marked it as 11 feet of clearance, and your shiny Airstream is 10' tall, do you assume he measured the 11' at the center of the span (which would account for all of the times the bridge had been struck by vehicles that may have been... oh.... I don't know... maybe 10' tall) or did he measure from the white lines on the side of the road to the points directly above them which means people driving 11'+ vehicles had ignored the sign and slammed right into the bridge? My answer to that question could be provided by another driver who should have chosen a career as a mime because the look on his face said "I can't believe some a-hole pulling an Airstream is driving down the middle of this road!!!!!) After a 20 minute GPS-guided tour of Upper St. Claire and Bethel Park we reached Trader Joe's. We circled the parking lot of the store and the adjacent Chic-fil-a to find a place to stash our rig. At one point I was prepared to put my newfound urban driving confidence to the test by parallel parking the rig in six adjacent parking spaces (hey! I could too do it!) but was attracted instead to a group of spots next to Chic-fil-A's dumpsters. We shopped, refilled our pantry, ate lunch in the trailer with the dogs and hit the trail (over the same roads that we took to reach Trader Joe's unfortunately). By the time we reached the Shenango area the sun had come out and the tips were in the mid 70s.

The campground here is a mix of waterfront and landlocked sites. Half of it is closed for the season and the rest is first-come-first-served. We drove around and picked the site where you see us here:

And here is the view from Mrs. C's side of the table:

It's a site with no hookups. That doesn't mean there's no fraternizing allowed here (I hope). It means no water, no power, no sewer at the site. We picked it because of the lakefront location and the privacy from the other campers. A great thing about a trailer like we have is that we can park it it anyplace and have enough water (fresh and waste capacity), propane and electricity to last for many days. 

The highlight of the evening was the sunset. Today's panorama is from the beach which is in the pic above and is directly behind our campsite (our private stretch of the Shenango River Reservoir for the night...

 

 

Good night. Tomorrow it's on to Buffalo for us to visit friends. I may or may not post blog entries here to "Silver Cliche' on the Road" for the next couple of days since we'll be off the road. Check back in on Monday when we'll be rolling toward Maryland.

Until then...

SC'

Written Wed posted Thurs... WV has no internet!

Written Wednesday from Bulltown Camp, WV. No Internet! Posted Thursday from Shenango Lake, PA.

 

Evening Campers! Silver Cliche' here with you again.

Greetings from Wild, Wonderful West Virginia!

We are two states away from where we started this morning in Tennessee. Let me share how we got here.

We had our normal rise and shine routine... no fried bread today though. We had electricity... and internet!... so we caught up on the news and correspondence and ate breakfast like normal folks. We knew that either today or tomorrow had to be a longer drive than normal to keep on schedule for a

Friday arrival in Buffalo. We had no reservations for tonight or tomorrow since many campgrounds in the northern parts of the country stop taking reservations after Labor Day and go to a "walk up" plan. We had a few potential sites picked and decided to head off and see where we landed.

Our first stop was for gas. We burn about 20 gallons a day when we travel on a 3 hour schedule so we are constantly looking for our next "fix". We stopped at an Exxon between the campground and the interstate and tanked up. While the tank filled I snapped this picture of the sign for the station we were patronizing:

It wasn't clear to me what some of those characters were intended to represent in the context of gasoline. It seemed to be a throwback but I couldn't quite remember the last time I had seen a sign like that. I asked one of the other folks there and they said that sign says "Welcome to Tennessee!". I like Tennessee. I think their friendly culture and Southern hospitality should be exported to all corners of the country! Especially the ones where we will be buying gas in the coming weeks.

On we pressed heading north.

We soon crossed into Virginia and watched as the terrain became more mountainous. We were on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in far southwestern Virginia. It turns out we had been there before with truck, trailer and dogs since our route home from New Jersey last fall included an overnight at Grayson Highlands State Park. The Blue Ridge includes many high peaks. Our camping spot at Grayson Highlands was over 4,800 above sea level. That park is inhabited by wild ponies that roam the high country. The October night we spent there last year the wind blew 40 mph and the morning temp was 34 degrees. Enough to drive us Floridians out of the mountains. Our next stop after that was Myrtle Beach, SC! The Blue Ridge also includes small towns that time has passed by, beautiful streams and lakes and several roads (Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway being the best known) that allow city people from Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Nashville and just about any other place to make their annual pilgrimage to the great out doors. Today it was empty and mostly overcast. Many of the peaks were not easily seen from the interstate. However, on any clear Saturday or Sunday in October when the leaves are changing the excitement that one usually only encounters competing for a spot in the just-opened checkout lane at Whole Foods moves to the Blue Ridge. We'll take an overcast Wednesday in September, thank you. We pressed on.

The morning moved quickly. We reached 3,000 at one point. We passed through two tunnels in the mountains (those each probably saved us an additional 1,000 feet of pavement climbing!). Soon we entered Wild, Wonderful West Virginia! We saw signs for a place called Tamarack in Beckley, WV. It promised a cross section of West Virginia crafts, arts and food. A quick consultation with TripAdvisor said we might like it as a lunch stop so we reset the GPS to take us there. Beckley is everything you would expect in a West Virginia town. It's old, gritty, hilly and slowly expanding like a pool of spilled molasses with a more modern edge. Tamarack was interesting and included some beautiful handmade furniture, pottery, and other items from artisans around the state (all for sale, of course, but we left with our wallets intact). The restaurant which was supposedly prepared by chefs from the famous Greenbriar resort was actually a cafeteria. A nice cafeteria, for sure. But a cafeteria none-the-less. We've stayed at the Greenbriar and I don't recall walking a cafeteria line with a fiberglass tray there.

After lunch we toured Beckley a bit and Mrs. C' performed a light sampling of their shopping options. You can see evidence of the past and present of this area as you drive around towns like Beckley. There is a preponderance of industrial businesses (we went past one large shop dedicated to welding supplies) there are rail lines all over and occasionally pieces of very heavy equipment. I think I saw more junked equipment than pieces that are in service. Why is that? West Virginia and Kentucky are coal country. The current state of these States is driven by the efforts from Washington to move from fossil fuels to renewables. Somewhere in California there is a family living well off the job that was created by Federal subsidies and loan guarantees being made to companies that build solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars. One day we will all have to pay those loans back once the Chinese decide they want their money back. For every one of those stories there are two people in West Virginia whose jobs in the coal industry were lost when the EPA lowered the sights of its regulatory guns on coal. A good thing for the environment? A bad thing for the US energy industry and its workers? I can't tell you. The only overt signs that West Virginians are fighting back are precisely that... signs. Throughout the state we see occasional billboards promoting coal and West Virginia's proud history supplying it to the rest of the country. Change always hits someone hard.

When planning and preparing for this trip, I thought of today's route with one place in mind...New River Gorge. Some of you may recognize the name. Depending on which sign you believe, the gorge is home to the longest steel arch bridge in the world or in the Western Hemisphere (don't ask me that follow on question... as I'll explain later we are in an internet void and I can't answer it... you know how to use Google...type away!). An arch bridge is precisely what it sounds like... a half circle of support for the roadway which in the case of the New River Gorge Bridge is entirely under the road deck. To make this design sensible on this scale only two things are needed. 1.) enough steel to build an aircraft carrier and 2. a massive ditch in which to erect the steel and the huge concrete footings that hold it up. We are not far from Pittsburgh (more on that tomorrow) so steel is not a problem and nature provided a ditch nearly a mile wide and 900 feet deep in which to place it. The result is spectacular. Here, let me show you some shots:

The day wasn't prefect for bridge pics since it was a bit overcast and the sun had moved beyond the point where the side of the bridge facing the observation deck was illuminated. I didn't care. For your benefit I gladly walked to each point on the trail including the bottom from which today's panorama was shot:

A sign at the point where I took this pic explains that the distance from the river below to the bottom of the arch would allow the Washington Monument to be placed there with two Statues of Liberty placed one above the other and not touch. I think there was something about the upper Liberty being able to brush her hair in the gap remaining above her head, but I had gotten the point and thought the sign maker was carrying on a bit too much with the analogy. You get the point. It's tall. To give a sense of how tall, look at the pic above. About ¼ of the way in from the left there is a fuzzy gray thing dropped across the river. That is the original two lane bridge that was functionally replaced by the new bridge in the 1970s. The trip that was enabled by that bridge and a 45 minute drive is now down to less than a minute thanks to steel and concrete used in abundance on the far right of the picture. Also, this bridge was the scene of countless unauthorized pranks of the daredevil kind. You know... parachuting, bungee jumping and such... oh, those daredevils! In a rare show of sensible surrender to the powerful forces of testosterone and mental illness, the government (I'm not sure which one... State of WV, some “bridge authority”... I don't know... “the government”) closes the bridge one day a year for... yep... “Bridge Day”. This is kind of like Sadie Hawkins Day for loonies. The BASE jumpers and other thrill seekers own the bridge for a day. The most common use of the structure made that day (which is coming up in October) is to jump off the railing on the side of the bridge in the panorama above and land (hopefully) on the sandy spot along the river where you can see a blue bus parked about 900' below. I've seen that event covered on the national news as a closing piece (“Now before we sign off, let's see what some crazy people in West Virginia did today while you were cutting the lawn and washing the car... makes our lives look a little boring, doesn't it Bob?”). Stay tuned to your TV for that and you'll now know more about where they are and what's happening.

After the bridge, it was another hour and a quarter to here at Bulltown Camp, WV. This is a Corps of Engineers site which means... water! We are lakeside at one of the Corps projects on Burnsville Lake. There is a Civil War battlefield here too. The weather was hot when we pulled in at 4:30... around 90... but we found a shady spot open with the lake behind us. Here's what we look like tucked in for the night:

When we arrived I opened the awning as a sign we felt committed to the place and as a way to keep the setting sun off the side of the trailer. Within 20 minutes, the sun was gone behind a cloud, the wind kicked up to 20 MPH or more and the rain came. I quickly retracted the awning (heavy wind and rain are not healthy for a 150 sq ft sail supported by light aluminum arms) and retreated into the shelter of the trailer. Dinner was grilled cheese sandwiches (Not Wonder Bread and American cheese... sprouted 7 grain bread with 1/4” thick slices of aged cheddar cooked on low until the bread is golden and the cheese just starts to ooze out of the side of the sandwich. After cooking, the sandwich must be set to rest like a steak just off the grill then cut diagonally before serving. We're campers... not barbarians!) with a fresh salad of tomato, avocado and fresh mozzarella with an olive oil drizzle. The rain makes a soothing sound on the roof of the trailer. Since we're all metal outside it has that “rain on tin roof” sound that country singers and poets famously describe. If a visiting metallurgist ever says “I don't know... that sounds more like rain on aluminum than rain on tin to me.” he can walk home. Anyway, the temperature dropped considerably with the rain. Judging by the national forecast, I think autumn may have just arrived in West Virginia. Oh... and summer seems to have taken the internet with it. I'll post this whenever we get back to civilization.

Tomorrow on through Pittsburgh and into northwest Pennsylvania somewhere near Erie.

Later!

SC'

On Top of Old Smoky

Evening Campers!

Greetings from the Volunteer State.... Tennessee! Specifically we are in the Tri-Cities tonight. What? Did you say "what tri-cities"? Why Kingsport, Bristol and Johnson City, of course... the three chambered heart of Eastern Tennessee! (hey...watch it... amphibians and reptiles have three chambered hearts and they do just fine as long as they lounge in the sun) If we were any farther east in Tennessee we'd be in North Carolina or any farther north in Virginia. If you think about Tennessee being a parallelogram, with the right top being pointed, we are in that point.

"How'd you and Mrs. C' wind up there, Silver Cliche'?", I hear you ask... well, Campers... that's today's story....

We began the day living the life of the neanderthal people... with no cell phone service and no internet. We were so far removed from modern life that when we checked into Smokemont campground the helpful park ranger said "There is no sill phone service here in the pork... " (she spoke "southern"... that's translates to "cell phone" and "park" for those of you north of the Mason Dixon... you're welcome) "...if you need hayelp there is a phone on the wall on the back of this here ranger's station and you all can use it to call 9-1-1." If the time warp we fell into had been powered by a slightly stronger source she probably would have said "There's a pay phone in a booth behind the mastodon barn over yonder... bring your own dime."

It was cold by Florida standards this morning. Probably in the upper 50's but we didn't have one of those devices that tells temperature and as I've said there was no internet to tell us what the temperature was in our locale. In Florida we have a term that describes days that start in the 50's. We call it "winter". We looked outside and it appeared cloudy and probably drizzly since the pavement was damp. So, we made coffee and ate fried bread made from the homemade 100% stone ground whole wheat dinner rolls that came out of the freezer yesterday. Geez! You have a lot of questions today. Let me explain... when we don't have electricity to make the toaster work we substitute with "fried bread". The preparation involves putting a little butter in a fry pan over the propane stove, slicing the rolls, placing them sliced-side down in the butter and waiting until they brown. Think of it as toast that comes out with the butter melted, or a grilled cheese without the cheese. Anyway, it goes great with some scrambled eggs or a ham and cheese omelet which is just what we had.

After eating and getting cleaned up and dressed (I switched to long pants for the first time since Yellowstone and a long sleeve tee shirt and a flannel shirt to protect myself from the bitter cold) we opened the door to the trailer. Guess what? It was still cold (barely 60) but it was sunny and the sky was clearing. Even though it was 9:00 AM the sun had not made it into the deep ravine in which we were camped. I stepped out to explore and found the following:

A strange caterpillar on my truck:

This beautiful Smoky Mountain stream about 50' behind the camper. This discovery provided an explanation for the apparent increase in my tinnitus while at this campground. Oh, sure, I still have constant ringing in my ears... but the additional hissing was the sound of the babbling brook behind the trailer. I had not heard this much babbling since Congress adjourned.

And while I was standing beside that stream I took this shot of our home on wheels where she kept us safe and warm overnight

So, knowing that we were clear to move on we loaded some cold drinks and the dogs in the truck and headed north deeper into Smoky Mountain National Park. Our destination: Clingman's Dome.

It was only a 30 minute drive to the highest point in the park. However, we started the day at about 1,500 feet above sea level and "the dome" is 6,644. For those of you unfamiliar with driving in the mountains, that difference in elevation over that distance of roadway translates to some steep driving. And it was. This combination of truck and trailer had seen steeper (heading west out of Denver on I-70 and entering the Big Horn National Forest in WY while heading east on US 16 are pretty solid tests of climbing power and we had passed both). Nevertheless, the drive was steep on US 441 North in the park, and narrow, and winding (check the map for yourself... this route includes switchbacks that are visible from space... or at least from the plane that Google Maps flies to take those pictures). We got to Clingman's Dome, or at least to the parking lot and took this picture of the GPS (ignore that dog next to it... that's my driving totem... the Christmas dog):

6,335 feet and 68 degrees. What I had seen on the internet was a concrete tower overlooking beautiful mountain vistas as far as the eye could see. What I didn't realize from the internet was that the trip from the parking lot to that tower was on a half mile trail that included over 300 vertical feet of climbing. However, we had come this far so we set off! Some time later, the tower was in sight and eventually conquered. From those lofty heights I snapped these pics which I present as today's panorama:

That's the curved walkway to the tower in the foreground (most of these panoramas I share with you are taken -- as this was -- with a wide angle lens. That type of lens distorts lines. This walkway in reality is a semicircle that rises about 50 feet from the base to the circular deck where I stood to take the pictures that were assembled into this panorama). I would note that the top of old smoky was not covered in cheese nor was anyone there looking for their meat ball. I'm happy to have cleared that up for those of you who asked for research on the subject.

What do you see in this picture? If you answered "diddly squat" you are correct. On any given day after driving 30 minutes up the mountain and burning enough gasoline to raise a 13,500 lb vehicle over a mile in the sky then climbing for 20 minutes while gasping for air all that the average Clingman's Dome visitor can see is "diddly squat". Very good. Now class, let's ask ourselves the next question "why is that?". Anyone? Anyone? The answer is "because of the 'smoke' in the Smoky Mountains." You might ask yourself "what smoke?". And there is the point of this whole story. There is no smoke. What you see in that picture is very dense fog... or maybe low flying clouds. It really doesn't matter. The fact is the whole "smoky mountain" thing is a gimmick... a marketing ploy... a come on. In reality we were visiting the "foggy mountains" or maybe the "cloudy mountains" and there wasn't going to be "jack" to see because of it. Were we disappointed? Maybe a little. Did we get angry at the deception? No. What we did was what every other visitor to Clingman's Dome does and what Mark Twain would have put into one of his books if he had written in Tennessee instead of Missouri. All the while down the trail we encouraged other hikers struggling to get up the mountain with our new-found good cheer. "You can do it"; "The view from up there is sooooo worth it!"; "Don't quit now or you'll miss the whole thing!". Moments like this unite us as part of the great human experiment. Nothing is so uniting as a group of people being suckered together. "Smoky" my ass....

Just so you know the whole thing wasn't a bust, let me share two more pics. In the tower at the top of Clingman's Dome are four pictorial guides to the view one might have if their fortune takes them to the top on the day of the great smoke out. Here is one of those signs to give you an idea of what lies beyond the fog... er... I mean "smoke" (I don't want to ruin the surprise for future visitors).

I'm sure that on some days this is a stunning view. Note that the "Eastern View" sign includes the thought that on the very clearest of days the highest point in the Eastern US is visible and it is Mt. Mitchell -- a mere 40 feet taller than Clingman's and 73 miles distant.

Finally, here's a panorama taken from the parking lot at Clingman's. It shows a bit more of the vista we had come to see. Don't show this or share our experience with any teenagers because what we learned today is that sometimes hard work and initiative don't pay. It's much better to have them learn that through broken dreams and disillusionment but not until they are over the age of 50. They are sassy enough now as it is.

After wrapping up our Clingman's experience we fired up the truck and continued north. This time it was the brakes that got the workout and within 30 minutes we were below 1,000. We had the choice to head to Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge to look for lunch. We chose the later. We chose poorly. Pigeon Forge is the "Kissimmee of the North". For those of you who have not had the experience, Kissimmee, FL is the gateway to Disney. That means Kissimmee is the place where any business, service, facility or civil engineering necessity that Disney would not allow on its property landed. It is a 10 mile long string of cheap hotels, all-you-dare-to-eat buffets, power substations, tee shirt shops, mini-golf extravaganzas and such. I'm thinking Kissimmee may be a reclaimed swamp which is the most fitting geographic history I could imagine for a town serving that function. Pigeon Forge and Kissimmee are identical twin sister cities separated at birth. We moved on and ate in the trailer a bit farther down the road. One good thing I can say about Pigeon Forge and Kissimmee (but not Jackson, WY if you rode with us on that trip). These are honest cities. Horrifying, but honest. Neither pretends to be anything other than what it is... the landing spot for a particular type of business or activity that may not be sought after by other communities. There is no perfume on these pigs... it's all pork You've got to respect that.

We arrived at Warrior's Path State Park, TN at about 3:00. There is electricity here... and water... and cell phone service which means internet for us. It's good to be back in civilization.

Tomorrow we move through Virginia and into West Virginia. We have a couple of choices of camping spots since many parks stop taking reservations after Labor Day and it's a walk-in only thing. If the weather is decent I hope to get us past the New River Gorge tomorrow which means pics of the gorge tomorrow night for you all. If we are lazy or delayed we'll camp near the gorge and pass over it on Thursday morning. Tune in tomorrow night to find out.

Good night!

SC'

Into the Great Smoky National Park!

Evening campers!

Silver Cliche' here again, writing to you tonight (Monday, Labor Day 2015) from Smokemont Campground inside the Great Smoky National Park.

We have stepped back in time. Here at Smokemont (which is a federal government run facility on federal land) things are different than at most state or private campgrounds. Just as in Yellowstone, there is no electricity, no running water and... prepare yourselves... no cell phone service and therefore no internet here. We are living like Abe Lincoln in his early days in Kentucky. If it wasn't for our home on wheels, I'd be reduced to writing this blog entry on the back of a shovel using bits of charcoal from the cold fire pit. As it is, we have 40 gallons of fresh water, an aluminum roof over our heads, two gi-normous car batteries for the lights and such, 50 lbs of propane for heating and cooking, two generators if we need them, hot and cold running water and our iPads. But except for that, it's just like the frontier here.

Just like I predicted last night, we woke up today ready to move on from Lake Lanier and see more of America. By 10:00 we were packed, hitched, loaded with fresh water, empty of the not-so-fresh (maybe one day I'll write about that process... on second thought, maybe not... and I certainly won't write about the technique we saw practiced by the fellow at the dump station ahead of us this morning... if you meet up with him, all I can say is DON'T SHAKE HIS HANDS!... just nod and say "hey"... as I've shared before, Mrs. C' and I love seeing America... watching Americans is not always as inspiring). Anyway, we were off!

As we headed north-northeast from Lake Lanier, the Atlanta influence faded fast. Within 10 minutes or so we were back in nondescript Georgia countryside. Pretty enough. It's a lot like the nondescript countryside near where you live provided you are east of the Mississippi. We know that because of the number of times Mrs. C' and I have looked at each other and said "Doesn't this look just like _______________?" Even though the comparative place may be 500 or 1,000 miles away. Rural north Georgia looks like that. We set the GPS to Tallulah George State Park which was a simple 75 minute drive. We got there quickly and learned that our Whole Foods stop yesterday near Atlanta was preparation for Tallulah George on Labor Day. It was so crowded that the guy collecting the parking fees took one look at our rig (we are 48' long nose to tail, 8'6" wide, 9'6" tall and weigh 13,500 lbs) and he said "I don't think you'll find a place to park. I'm not going to charge you."

Clearly, he underestimated the determination of Mrs. C' and me. We advanced steadily toward the parking lot. We were not dismayed by the fact that Smart cars and Fiat 500s that are 1/4 our length 1/2 our width and 1/10th our weight had given up hope of finding striped pavement marked for them and were parked on the grass along both sides of the road leaving the park. We pressed on. Fortunately our towing mirrors are taller than most cars parked there, which allowed us to navigate the gauntlet of passenger vehicles while doing no damage to them our our aluminum skin. When we got to the parking area, voila' a single spot marked "Bus and RV Parking Only" waited for us. The other three spots marked that way were double parked with cars. Aside from us, there was not a bus or RV in the place (cowards!). The grass beside our reserved space was parked with cars (once I pulled in, one of those poor bastards was not getting out... I wondered how proud of himself he'd feel once he realized that his illegal parking job only worked so long as a legal parker didn't come by to exercise his rights in the RV spot). Anyhow, we leashed the dogs and headed to the gorge! What a zoo! Within ten minutes we realized that a.) significant hiking was involved to see the good stuff b.) dogs were not allowed on the trails or in the visitors center and c.) the same people who messed up the parking were now busily messing up the scenery. We returned to the rig (heck... it hadn't cost us anything to park... it wasn't like we were throwing away a perfectly good investment). I can tell you this: From a distance, Talulah Falls sounds fantastic! On to our next stop... Franklin, North Carolina!

I mentioned last night that Mrs. C's late father had a cabin in Franklin. We never saw it, but he waxed nostalgic about it in the years between his selling the place and his demise. I get the sense that owning a cabin in the mountains is a lot like owning a boat... or a travel trailer. The purpose is to build memories. The actual ownership and maintenance experience often leaves something to be desired. So, we headed to Franklin to see what it was about. We had even picked a lunch spot with the help of TripAdvisor.com. Half way to Franklin we were struck by an amazing site (after almost striking a lady in a Grand Marquis who had suddenly turned in front of us then stopped when she realized the entrance she had chosen to a gas station was over a gutter that she could only traverse at 2 MPH. I'm not sure whether she was concerned about shaking up her bouffant hair or her bad back, but if I hadn't hit the breaks hard she would have been using the front passenger door handle to clean her right ear... but thanks to 8 sets of brakes, that didn't happen to her.). Where was I? Oh... on the road to Franklin being struck by a vision... it was a three story timber frame barn that was surrounded by heaps and piles of house parts and that bore a huge sign saying "Architectural Salvage". Well... we have been looking for some ornamental iron to use as gates around our home in Vero. There is not much ornamental iron salvaged in our part of Florida, but this certainly would be the place that would have it. We tossed out the plans to see Franklin, did a U turn and pulled up on the side of US 441 on a wide shoulder and opened the trailer to have lunch before looking for gates. After all, you can't enter a salvage yard on an empty stomach! Well, they had lots of shutters, doors, table legs, recent lighting from Asia and such... but no suitable gates. 

Between Talulah George, Franklin and the salvage barn we had had enough adventure for the day. We headed to Smokemont Campground and somewhere along the way passed out of the connected world of the Internet and back to our roots as pioneers. I can't say precisely when that happened but it was near Cherokee, NC. There is a detail about Cherokee that is unique in our travels and caught me by surprise. As we entered town, I noticed that the signs on public buildings described what they were in common terms and language (library, fire station, etc.) and had an additional line of text at the bottom using characters I had never seen before. WTH? At least Spanish or other languages use the same alphabet as English... so it wasn't that. I'm also familiar with Asian characters and this writing was not Chinese, Japanese or Korean, either. I finally concluded that Cherokee must have adopted a sister city in... oh.... maybe Nepal and in a show of solidarity had added Nepalese descriptions to their signs. That theory held for at least 90 seconds until we passed a building whose architecture was clearly Native American and whose sign had these unfamiliar characters at the top and in large text with the English words "Tribal Offices" below. Ohhhhhh... I get it! The town of Cherokee was home to the Cherokee tribe before the US Army made its best effort to move every last one of them on foot to Oklahoma. That wasn't Nepalese or Burmese or Vietnamese or any of the other "-ese" languages. That was written Cherokee. It was a moving realization and a testament to the people who kept the language alive and displayed it proudly in Cherokee, NC.

Tomorrow it's up and over the Smokies. I said in an earlier post that we would visit the highest point in the Eastern US at Clingmans Dome. In fact, it's the highest point in the Smokies and the highest point in Tennessee. The highest point in the east is 20 or 30 miles from here in NC. I think it's Mt. Mitchell. I'd look it up on the Internet for you... but you'll have to do that for yourself from your cozy spot in civilization.

Later...

SC'

Watching paint dry

Howdy, Campers!

Well... it's night three here at Lake Lanier. Let me recap the day:

1. Got up before the sun (as usual)
2. Drank coffee which was good (as usual)
3. Did out reading and chatting while the sun came up (as usual)
4. Made breakfast, walked the dogs, got cleaned up for the day (as usual)
5. Looked at each other and said "what now" (usually we say "let's go!")
6. Went to lunch at a nice, highly reviewed Asian restaurant nearby which lived up to its billing
7. Explored nearby Alphareta, GA, did some shopping, went to Whole Foods to reprovision for the next few days (so you know we were back in civilization if there was a Whole Foods there).
8. Went back to the trailer
9. Fed and walked the dogs including wandering around and looking for photo ops (there really were none... this is a very nice place to hang out but it is not photogenic)
10. Ate dinner and dessert (scratch made raspberry crepe's!) and settled into evening TV and reading

So... what's wrong with this picture and what did we learn today?

Well... we realized that civilization is not civilized. Have you been to a Whole Foods recently? The activity in the aisles resembles a blend of the police academy training day on creating effective roadblocks, the bumper cars ride from the amusement park and the TV game show "supermarket sweep". I think I'd rather have root canal or drive the trailer (which is 8'6" wide) back through Atlanta on I75/85 (where the lanes are 9'0" wide) at rush hour. Lesson #1: When you live and travel in low population density areas, the return to high density is a shock to the system.

Lesson next: It's nice to slow down and spend three days in one place, and this is a very nice place, but we are ready to see America. Parking the rig at a campsite is a chance to see Americans. America and Americans are not the same. We are ready to shift focus.

That comes to the deeper realization and that is we are travelers more than campers. I know this will sound campy and hackneyed, but for us it really is about the journey, not the destination. It's about seeing new places, interacting with the people and the places we encounter then moving on for the next encounter. The "camping people" we meet probably recognize that about us. Many of them move into a campsite as if the setup is permanent. There are people with outdoor lighting, post lamps with their name on a hanging sign which they place by the road, screened rooms up to 12' x 12', dining furniture they bring with them (I guess the picnic tables are not up to their demands for seating and eating?), outdoor showers (they look like a "tent phone booth"... 3'x3' base and 7'; tall. Those people are CAMPERS. We on the other hand may... but only may... pull two folding chairs from the locker on the side of the Airstream if the bugs are minimal and the campsite has someplace worth sitting. If we are really committed to the place we unfurl the awning that is mounted to the side of the trailer.  That setup takes up to 3 minutes... unfurling it shows a degree of commitment that we don't usually make to a campsite! But each of those steps has to be undone prior to departure and when departure time comes we really don't want anything to slow us down. We're travelers, not campers.

So, tomorrow we get back to doing our thing. The day is sure to start with coffee and reading and dog care then we will pack up (10 minutes) stop on the way out of the campground to lighten the load on the trailer and head northeast into North Carolina. The trip tomorrow starts the mountain segment of this adventure. We'll probably stop to check out Tallulah George State Park, GA where the Tallulah river has carved a gorge 1,000' deep. The tightrope walker Karl Wallenda performed a crossing there in 1970 and his great grandson Nik was scheduled to repeat his feat this summer. Then we'll head into NC with a stop in Franklin where Mrs. C's late father had a cabin for many years. Then on to Smokemont Campground which is a Federal facility inside the Smokey Mountains National Park. I'm sensing you'll see pictures in the next post.

It's been a nice three days here on Lake Lanier, but the next campground is calling and I think I can hear the next few after that, too. We will camp in a different state each night this week (NC, TN, WV, PA) before we reach Buffalo on Friday and settle in for a weekend visiting old friends and connecting with our past.

Until tomorrow (which is is a rustic campground... no water and no electric... maybe no internet!). If I don't post anything tomorrow expect a double dose on Tuesday!

Later...

SC

Exploring Buckhead

Evening, Campers! Silver Cliche' here writing tonight (as last night) from the shores of Lake Lanier outside Atlanta.

I mentioned the other day that with each successive trip we reduce the number of hours we drive each day and increase the number of days per week when we don't move at all. This trip we are shooting for 3 driving hours per day and two days a week when we stay in place. It happens that the two for this week are back-to-back here in northeast Georgia. That pace is making this trip a bit more relaxed than the Yellowstone trip in June/July where we did 4 driving hours and one stationary day per week. We are currently defining a Southwest US trip for the spring of 2016. Our route looks like a shot across the south and Texas followed by a upper case "C" through NM, AZ, UT and CO. If we were headed to smaller states in the Northeast we'd call it a lower case "c". For Delaware and Rhode Island we'd need a smaller font size. Anyway, enough about typography... at the pace we are moving on this trip I think it will take us... oh... let me calculate in my head.... about a year and a half to get to the Grand Canyon, Arches, Zion and back. Oh well... we seem to enjoy this... dragging it out might be a good idea.

So, today was a day off for us. That meant we got up and lounged around the trailer in our PJs drinking coffee and reading. Last night was the first night we didn't use the AC since somewhere around Iowa in early July coming home from Wyoming. It was in the mid to upper 70s at bed time and may have reached the upper 60s by dawn. With two roof fans and all the windows open we slept well enough. We didn't put the AC on today either. Hopefully we can live au naturale until we get back to Florida in late September.

After hours of lounging we eventually got the urge to explore. I did a bit of googling and discovered that one of our favorite restaurants... ok... our very favorite restaurant... had several locations in the Atlanta area. Those of you who hung out with us in Maryland know what I mean... Houston's! Those of you who don't know about our Houston's "jones" might appreciate the following: 1.) we sometimes ate at Houston's twice in one day 2.) when we lived in Frederick, MD and the only remaining Houston's in the DC area was in Bethesda we still drove an hour each way for lunch on Saturday 3.) We ate at Houston's in Rockville or Bethesda at least once a week for several years straight (Excepting when we were away from DC. However if we were in Miami we would eat at Houston's there.) 4.) when we sold the Frederick house and moved to an apartment we had to select between several appealing buildings. The one we chose was across the street from Houston's and we could see the restaurant from the specific apartment we picked there. That way, if the parking lot was getting too crowded we knew to leave earlier for lunch or dinner so we didn't have to wait. and 5.) after a year of retirement (and no Houston's) while driving around Washington on the beltway last year heading to NJ to pick up the Airstream with 5 hours of driving still to go and three complaining dogs in the truck we got off the highway to go to Houston's in Bethesda and pick up take out. While tasty, the experience of eating while driving and screaming "SHUT UP OR WE'LL TIE YOUR DAMN LEASH TO THE TRAILER HITCH UNTIL WE GET TO NEW JERSEY DO YOU HEAR ME?????" reduced our sense of wonder and delight at renewing the acquaintance. Get the picture? We like the food, service and atmosphere at Houston's. Knowing that there was a Houston's within a 40 minute drive of our campsite was enough to get us moving. Their choice of a location also determined what corner of Atlanta we would explore. Buckhead.

So we headed to Buckhead. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: "Buckhead is an affluent uptown district of Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, comprising approximately the northern fifth of the city. Buckhead is a major commercial and financial center of the Southeast... ". If you are familiar with the DC area, Buckhead is the equivalent of downtown Bethesda or Chevy Chase... it's not the center of the region (that would be Washington or Atlanta downtown)... but it's close to the center and offers some of the better aspects of the city center while leaving out some of the less desirable elements. We ate some of our old favorites and enjoyed it.After that and with the help of Google we found some shopping for Mrs. C' while I kept the truck safe (this is Atlanta after all!) by sitting in it and reading.

After that, we headed back to Lake Lanier, fed and walked the dogs, cooked some hot dogs on the grill, made a campfire which inspired genuine toasted marshmallows for a 'smore each. Now it's dark, quiet, cooling down and nearly bed time. All day and I took not one picture to share with you.

Tomorrow? Who knows. We'll start with coffee and reading (I'm sure Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are working right now on something we can read about in the morning... otherwise I'll learn more about the history and geography of Lake Lanier). Come back tomorrow to see if we found the inspiration to breakout and explore more of Georgia.

Later!

SC

Deep in the head of Georgia

Evenin' Campers!

Silver Cliche' here again... this time from northeastern Georgia on Lake Sidney Lanier northeast of Atlanta. Last night I wrote from the "heart of Georgia" and in retrospect that was an apt choice of words. Much of central Georgia -- the core of the state if you will -- is like the place we stayed last night. Rural, timeless and unspoiled (or only slightly spoiled by trailer parks, abandoned tractors and such). Today we drove out of that part of Georgia into the part that is developed (highways!), bustling (traffic!), and modern (fast food chains!). I have no idea what culture-clashes may be playing out in Georgia but as an outside observer I'm guessing the heart wonders if the head has lost it's mind.

Let's go back to this morning... Mrs. C' and I got up as we usually do before the sun. The coffee was delicious. The reading was typical (Wall Street's on fire!... Wall Street's on fire!... Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are hogging the media!... Europeans are revolting!). Eventually, the sun started to appear through the windows and I said "gotta go!" as I often do when we are on the road and the sun is doing something different than it was 10 minutes before. I grabbed the camera in one hand, a coffee cup in the other, a spare lens in the pouch pocket of my cargo shorts and walked back to the dock where I took last night's panorama of the cypress trees. I was expecting to take the morning version of last night's shot. The sun started to rise. I started to snap away. Here's the first group of pics I got:

Nice, eh? I thought so... except you can't tell those are cypress... or that it's a swamp... heck, it could be Africa. A keeper? Yes. A SilverCliche' fav? No. Photography is like that for me... you go out to take a shot and it doesn't click (that's a photography pun... ) but sometimes something else pops up. Here was that something else:

Now that's CYPRESS! I might name that pic "Two Among Many". It's not photoshopped. The sun literally shone on the trunks of just two trees and they were in the foreground. Sometimes Mrs. C' and I feel that way when we're on the road and seeing such beautiful places as this.

The cypress pics continued... panoramas... solo trees... mid-morning groups... I can show you cypress pics until you cry "Uncle". Don't believe me? How about this:

Or this:

or this (this is like playing peek-a-boo with a 2 year old in the row ahead of you on a long airplane flight):

or even this:

Did I make my point? There are a crap load of cypress trees at George L Smith State Park and I did my best to photograph every damn one of them. I failed, of course. But I think I captured enough to overwhelm the cypress-tolerance of everyone except a Georgia Tech Forestry student or the producers of Swamp People.

With that, we were off!

Heading north-northwest toward the metropolis... Hotlanta (again... having been there in July on the way home from Yellowstone). We had learned our lesson previously and recognized that we were headed for the perfect storm of Atlanta traffic... Friday/afternoon/holiday weekend. Remember, these are the same roads where people spent 24 hours in their cars during a snow and ice storm not long ago. 24 hours! And they didn't have their Airstream, generators, 40 gallons of fresh water, 60 lbs of propane, a fridge full of home cooked food, spare toilet paper. All they had were dried McDonald's french fries under the seat, a "porta cup" (ok... that's the emergency facility made from a discarded 7-11 BigGulp) and some Taco Bell caliente sauce packets. We were ready to be stranded... but we planned a route that avoided Atlanta alltogether.

That route took us out of the part of Georgia that time and history have forgotten and into some of the most beautiful, preserved, southern towns you could imagine. We stopped for a bit of shopping and sightseeing in Madison, Georgia (Google it... it's worth it and I didn't get any pictures). There was a historic marker every 2 blocks, lovingly restored antebellum homes, a courthouse that would be the pride of any county in the US and charming shops and restaurants on the main street. My warped mind kept saying "I guess Sherman didn't come this way." (sorry to any of you who are members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy... but a mind is a terrible thing to have).

As we reached the Atlanta outskirts the GPS suddenly jumped from showing 1:32 minutes of travel remaining to 3:05. OUCH! TROUBLE AHEAD! RE-ROUTE... RE-ROUTE! So we stayed even farther outside Atlanta and reached our destination around 5:30 at which time it was still 88 degrees. Maybe I should say it was still and 88 degrees... oh... and humid.

So where are we? We are camped on the shores of Lake Sidney Lanier near Cumming, Georgia (no... I'm not gong to touch that one... I promised this would be occasionally spicy but always good family fun... you're each on your own this time). Like other lakefront campsites we've stayed at, Lake Lanier is: a.) man made and b.) spotted with US Army Corps of Engineers campsites such as Bald Ridge Creek where we are now.

Here's a pic of the trailer in site 14 from which I am writing presently:

That's the lake in the background. In contrast to some of the dusty, muddy, eroded campsites where we've parked the Cliche' in the past, this site (and the whole park) is sweeeeet. The trailer is on a concrete pad, the area next to it is nicely raked composition (compacted and smoothed with a fine gravel topping... the dogs love it) and it is so level that I didn't adjust the trailer with side-to-side levelers or unhitch from the truck to get the pitch adjusted. It's just plain level.

We don't often show you what life is like inside our mobile bungalow. Here's a pic from amidships looking aft with the rear hatch open and the lake in the distance:

That's the new "cafe table" I made after Yellowstone in the center. Its half the size of the dinette that came with the trailer and allows us plenty of coffee cup and iPad room plus more open space for living. Mrs. C' takes the couch on the right in this pic and I take the left. Kailey's day bed is under the table (in the evening she withdraws to the foot of our bed in the front of the trailer) and Romeo can be found wherever Mrs. C' is located. Those slipcovers were made before the Yellowstone trip and are sacrificial so we can preserve the original tan upholstery. The fridge is on the right in this pic and the corner of the galley on the left. The entrance door is between the galley and my couch. The head was to my left when I took this pic. The closet and stall shower to the right and the queen bed behind me.

Here's a shot of sunset from Mrs. C's spot through the open hatch (I made her a 'smore tonight... so she let me sit in her spot to take this.)

I walked down to the lake at sunset. The lake water level is 4' below the "full pool" level. It's higher than it has been in many recent summers. The lake shore shows lots of erosion which exposes a sedimentary rock formation that has many thin layers and is tipped dramatically. There are signs everywhere that the shore erodes steadily. In the final pic of the night I'll share a sunset panorama from the beach below our campsite. In it you can see at least four major trees that have toppled from the bank into the lake. That appears to be a year's worth in the 200' or so of lake shore in the picture. I think we're good for the weekend, but if a visit to Bald Ridge Creek is on your bucket list, I wouldn't leave it until last!

It's a lovely spot. Thanks to all you tax payers who help the US Army Corp of Engineers to provide us such a nice place to park for three days! I'm not an accountant but I suspect what we payed them for this site doesn't cover the cost. Your contribution to our happiness is what modern America is all about and we appreciate it!

Here's the final panorama for the day:

Good night from Cumming! (that still doesn't sound right) We are here for three nights then on to the Great Smokey National Park.

SC