Smoke and Rain
The jungle sounds of chirping birds, buzzing cicadas, and rhythmic crickets abruptly ceased as if the forest possessed a global “mute” button. And then it came. The sound of a thousand stampeding hooves filled our ears. We could feel the ground start to tremble as the noise came closer. We hoped the protection of our living room tent would hold.
As the sound grew nearer, a cloud of mist rushed at us from behind the trees. And then it hit. It was rain so thick that you could swim as easily as walk. We were clustered inside our shelter, centered around a table holding a board game and beers… it was a wonderful experience!
This slightly dramatic account is an embellishment of our experience in yet another Eastern rainstorm, something that has become a staple of our adventures East of the Rockies. In this case, other than needing to keep any moisture sensitive objects at least 2’ away from any of the walls, our enclosure worked great. We continued playing our game and sipping delicious 90 minute IPAs poured from our Dogfishhead growler purchased a few days prior.
This was a rare day of no travel. We opted to enjoy camp for a brief respite from the significant traveling of the previous week. It was an awesome free campsite to do just that. It was located in the Great Smokey Mountains, just a few miles East of the National Park. The site was huge, and we had it all to ourselves. There was even a scenic creek flowing through, and we had enough space around us to actuallylet the dogs off leash to explore unrestrained.
We left our campsite the next day to explore Smokey Mountain National Park. The park gets its name from the way clouds and foggy mist flow wisp upwards from the Appalachian mountain valleys.
As we approached the park, we were very surprised to see the town at the entrance filled with almost Vegas-like tourist attractions. It had everything from a Bubba Gump shrimp to a Ripley’s believe it or not museum. It was definitely not the reception we expected to see in visiting a park renowned for thick forest and mountains.
As it turns out, the tourist attractions were driven by the fact that the Great Smokey Mountain National Park is the MOST visited park in the United States. I still don’t see the exact reason why, other than it’s proximity to concentrated populations in the SE. It is a beautiful park, but, in our opinion, does not have quite the same grandeur as seen at parks such as Yellowstone, or Yosemite.
We spent a brief day exploring a few trails in the park. One of the highlights was a nature walk through sections of an old growth deciduous forest. It was fun to see such huge leaf filled trees! We would have liked to give the park proper due diligence and explore more of the trails, but Hurricane Florence was still an imposing threat, and had the possibility of following us West, so we decided to bee-line it to Tennessee instead.
