Cades Cove

I ended that last entry kind of in the middle of nowhere because I fell asleep. Being jobless now, I stay awake like I mean it and sleep whenever I want to. It’s a good life – I never have to pretend to be awake and with it when I’m not. If I want to lay down, I do. You can’t do that when you’re a 9-to-5’er.

After Pat, JD and Emily got back from the Chimneytops hike, we went back to the campsite, packed up, traded the kids off to Pat’s ex-wife in town, then Patrick and I went back to the campsite. By that time it was getting late, so we turned in around 9 pm. Naturally, turning in early didn’t ensure we got an early start, so we crawled out of bed around 9 am and by 10 am we were back on the Cades Cove Loop, checking out the other historic sites along the way.

Edit: See photos related to this part of this entry here (Pictures 3: Great Smoky Mountains National Park Settlements).

Since it was a Monday morning, we’d have thought it would be quiet, but there were a surprising number of cars on the loop – not to mention approximately one trillion kids on a school field trip at the Cable Mill. But we made the best of it – I could often wait until people had moved out of the way to take pictures.

When we stopped at the John Oliver Place, there was a volunteer ranger there to tell some of the history of the building and some of the park lore. When John Oliver, his wife, and their infant daughter moved into the cove in late November in about 1820, they would have starved to death had nearby Indian tribes not left them five bags of food (the ranger said it was three bags of dried pumpkin, a bag of chestnuts and a bag of corn – not sure who thought to record that fact, but it’s pretty cool that they apparently did, and that that much food was enough to sustain a family of three through a Smokies winter).

He also told the story of the only Civil War-related killing in the Cove. This part of Tennessee was sympathetic with the North, since they did not have any large plantations and no real need for slaves. The Rebel troops, however, would often come into the valley and steal livestock from the inhabitants. The townsfolk of Cades Cove devised an early warning system where the girls of the town would go into the woods and watch for Rebels, and when they saw them, they would signal each other via animal calls and get word back to town so that the farmers could hide their livestock. When the Rebels found out who devised this plan – a Reverend – they killed him. (There’s some Southern hospitality for you.) The Reverend’s gravestone, which is in the graveyard at the Primitive Baptist Church, notes that he was killed by Rebels.

Patrick and I drove around the Cove, exploring the old houses and taking some great pictures. We’ve decided to go find an old farmhouse, fix it up, get some horses and live happily ever after. (Not to mention hot in the summer and cold in the winter ever after.)

Once we finished at the Cove, we headed into town to bring Patrick’s car to his daughter Chrystine. We were headed to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in North Carolina, part of Nantahala National Forest, and we only needed one car. After passing his car off to Chrystine in Kodak, we hit the road.

By this point it was already about 4 pm, and it was starting to get cloudy and rainy. We took the Cherohala Skyway into North Carolina, and the fog actually made for some gorgeous pictures, as opposed to the flat light a beautiful day would have provided.

Edit: See photos related to this part of this entry here (Pictures 4: The Cherohala Skyway).

It was late by the time we arrived at Snowbird, a campground Patrick often goes to. We went to the very last campsite down a long dirt road, known as the Junction, probably because on the left side of the road is a spring that flows into a river on the right side of the road.

We set up camp in the dark and crawled into the tent shortly before it started pouring. Between the heavy rushing river to one side, the waterfalls of the stream to the other and the rain all around us on the tent, it was the kind of night’s sleep you only experience a few times in your life.

Like I said to Pat that night – “I wish I could just press Pause and stay here for a really, really long time.”