Its all about the timing

Last night we got the tent up and minutes later it poured. We drove along Cades Cove auto loop, returned for coffee and a little tent r&r. While I was typing last night’s blog entry I looked up and said, “that sounds like rain.” It was only a little, but Lauren and I closed both sides of the tent’s flaps and minutes later it was pouring. It let up after a while and Lauren decided that she had to pee one more time before going to sleep. I had already wiggled into my mummy bag, but decided I had better join her. Upon our return and subsequent wiggling into sleeping bags it started to pour again. It’s all about the timing.

That last storm was a doozy with lots of very loud thunder and bright lightning. The sounds lulled me to sleep as I wondered if everyone else’s tents were as waterproof as mine. I woke up at daylight with a full bladder that I could no longer hold. Lauren groaned at me and rolled over. After returning I tried to go back to sleep, and the sound of rain lulled me to sleep again. Surprisingly we slept until about 8am. Lauren told me that it was good thing we hadn’t gotten up early to hike because it poured – probably right after I cam back from the bathroom. Good timing.

We got up, ate breakfast, packed up the wet tent, and drove the annoying autoloop through Cade’s Cove to get the trailhead for Abram’s Falls. The auto loop is annoying because there are millions of signs clearly saying to be courteous and pull over at the pullouts and not to stop in the middle of the road. Hardly anyone listens to this. WE finally made it to the trailhead and were greeted by a scene from those Verizon wireless commercials – you know the ‘dead zone’ ones. There was an elderly couple cleaning up trash. They told us not to go swimming in the falls because some boy from Pennsylvania died there last week. They found him 30 feet underwater under the falls. She didn’t know it was so deep under the falls. You know he was with a school group of about ninety kids. Blah Blah. I tried to soothe them with my reassurances that I had no intention of getting in the water near the falls and solely edged away. What a way to start.

The hike was five miles roundtrip and I thought very enjoyable and not nearly as strenuous as the sign predicted. Abram’s Fall is beautiful and had heaps of water pouring over it. It is perfect for photo ops. We took a photo together with the timer, I took some cool photos of Lauren, and then another hiker took some great ones of the two of us. We had some snacks and enjoyed the view and then headed back to the parking lot.

After annoying exit on the Cades Cove loop we made our way through the park and around the park. The drive is really pretty – but it looks a lot like home just with slightly bigger mountains.

Our first stop after the Smokies was the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum. This gem of a museum was very informative about Native Americans in the area – from when they arrived to present with artifacts, had Cherokee storytelling machines, a couple of short videos on loop, and the story of Sequoyah and his syllabary. Sequoyah made an alphabet for the Cherokee language. What is so significant about this is that only four or five different alphabets have been created without basis on another, and the fact that Sequoyah did not already know a written language at all when he created his. It looks weird to me. And the sounds that go with the letters make no sense to me – but that is probably true of any language.

The next stop was Mayfield Creameries. We arrived too late for the factory tour (bad timing for the first time!), but poked around the gift shop and enjoyed some fantastic ice cream for a great price. I got moo-ionaire java and blackberry cream pie and Lauren got banana pudding and chocolate cake batter. After filling our bellies with ice cream (for sort of dinner (it was around 5)), we called Steve and let him know we were on our way to Chattanooga. He had something to go deliver so he told us to let ourselves in and make ourselves at home.

We are now showered and nice-smelling and waiting for Steve’s arrival for real dinner and his opinions on some of the tourist destinations of Chattanooga.