Day 5
June 7, 1995
Gatlinburg, TN
Rainy Days and Mondays... Today isn't Monday, but the weather will sure get you down. The storm raged through the night, and the rain has found some chinks in the armor of our tent. I apparently lucked out with the "upstream" side of the tent, but Todd apparently was in the valley, and was continually rolling into the water all night. When we finally got up at 9:00 (amazing how much lazier we seem to get each day), the rains continued unabated. We had hoped to get some hiking in today, but even if it had stopped immediately, the ground would have still been too wet.
After our showers and breakfast of cold Pop-Tarts (no campfires this morning), we relaxed under the awning and read some books we had purchased yesterday in town. Todd had selected a paperback titled "Murder and Mayhem", which gives a synopsis of 75 of the most heinous murders in history. I had chosen a book with brief biographies of 10 cartoonists, including Gary Larson, Berke Breathed, and Garry Trudeau. Todd's experiences with the impromptu "Waterbed" cemented the decision to obtain larger living quarters, but we wanted to wait for the rain to settle down.
Finally, at around 11:00, we could not stand to sit around any longer. We both donned our motorcycle rainsuits, and headed out on the 20 mile trip to Sevierville's Wal-Mart for a new tent.
With proper equipment, riding in the rain is not a big deal. The most annoying thing to me is getting an itch on my nose-Normally, I just slide the visor up, and scratch it. With wet gloves, however, all that happens is that I get a drip of water on my nose-which then causes another itch.
Personal problems aside, we arrived at Wal-Mart without incident. The parking lot was quite full, so we parked at the curb, and I remained with the bikes while Todd went in for the tent. What I had failed to consider was that Todd is apparently a personal target of Wal-Mart in terms of delaying his exit from the store. The last time we went in, the clerk took about 10 minutes to verify the price on a $3.00 item. While waiting for him to return with the new abode, I was able to take a nice nap on the bike, as he met a similar fate. Eventually, he did return-renewing his pledge, once again, to never shop at Wal-Mart again.
It was nearing lunchtime, and although the rain had stopped, our wood would still be too damp to easily make a campfire. We therefore opted to eat out, and stopped at Taco Bell in Pigeon Forge.
While we ate, we discussed our options as to what to do with the rest of the day, and what other things we wanted to see. We agreed that we have pretty much run dry on the museums (except maybe the Elvis museum-no decision there yet). Our main objective with the Smokies for the remainder of the trip is to get in some hiking miles, but with the wet ground, that is pretty much out of the question for today.
Our lunch finished, we headed back to camp to restructure our compound. The little dome tent was emptied, and moved out into the sun to dry out. With a few minutes' effort, we were able to assemble the new cabin-style 10'x12', six-foot-tall tent. I am beginning to wonder how we are going to get everything home that we have acquired so far on the trip. The sleeping bags were hung over the laundry line to dry out, and the duffel bags and various other gear was stowed in the new tent.
Since we could not hike today, we chose instead to ride away from Gatlinburg to the east and see where the road took us. Our first stop was simply labeled "Pebblebrook", with an arrow pointing down a small road off of the highway. It turned out to be a small park within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park system, and the road followed the brook for a period of a few miles.
Although there were no falls on this portion of the creek, there were several "cascades", where the water would drop several levels over a short run of rocks. This made for some very nice visual and aural effects, and we stopped a few places along the way to admire the scenery.
After running the length of the developed road for the park, we resumed our eastward run on the highway. The road took us up and down through this portion of the Le Conte foothills, and eventually let us to the Foothills Highway, a six-mile run with several scenic stopping points. We drove along to the end of the stretch, which empties out onto Interstate 40. We were then able to take I-40 back a couple of miles, and catch the highway that had brought us here. By this time, we had logged about 50 miles, and headed back for camp.
It was approaching 6:00 by the time we returned to camp, and we promptly set about making our standard supper of hot dogs over the fire. Although the wood had been rained on, we had relatively little problem getting a good fire going (thanks to the Fire Sticks from Wally World), and soon had our evening meal ready to go. We each had one of the remaining pair of Pop-Tarts for dessert, and settled back to resume our reading. We had both finished our respective books, so Todd took the cartoonist bio, and I started delving into the case files of mass-murder.
This was not a particularly exciting or action-packed day, but if the whole point of vacation is to relax, I guess we need a couple like this. The weather forecast is clear for the next several days for this region, so we hope to be able to get back to the hiking tomorrow. We have renewed our campsite for tonight and tomorrow night, and tentatively plan to leave Friday morning, with Mammoth Caves in Kentucky being our most likely destination. At this point, we anticipate arriving back in Indy on Saturday evening.
Todd and I can be reached at my CompuServe address (74044,3457), or via Internet at [email protected]. This report is sent via a Canon Innova Book 10C laptop, with a Motorola Power PCMCIA Modem plugged into my MicroTAC Elite, which is dangling from a tent pole in order to get enough signal to transmit properly.
Gatlinburg, TN
Rainy Days and Mondays... Today isn't Monday, but the weather will sure get you down. The storm raged through the night, and the rain has found some chinks in the armor of our tent. I apparently lucked out with the "upstream" side of the tent, but Todd apparently was in the valley, and was continually rolling into the water all night. When we finally got up at 9:00 (amazing how much lazier we seem to get each day), the rains continued unabated. We had hoped to get some hiking in today, but even if it had stopped immediately, the ground would have still been too wet.
After our showers and breakfast of cold Pop-Tarts (no campfires this morning), we relaxed under the awning and read some books we had purchased yesterday in town. Todd had selected a paperback titled "Murder and Mayhem", which gives a synopsis of 75 of the most heinous murders in history. I had chosen a book with brief biographies of 10 cartoonists, including Gary Larson, Berke Breathed, and Garry Trudeau. Todd's experiences with the impromptu "Waterbed" cemented the decision to obtain larger living quarters, but we wanted to wait for the rain to settle down.
Finally, at around 11:00, we could not stand to sit around any longer. We both donned our motorcycle rainsuits, and headed out on the 20 mile trip to Sevierville's Wal-Mart for a new tent.
With proper equipment, riding in the rain is not a big deal. The most annoying thing to me is getting an itch on my nose-Normally, I just slide the visor up, and scratch it. With wet gloves, however, all that happens is that I get a drip of water on my nose-which then causes another itch.
Personal problems aside, we arrived at Wal-Mart without incident. The parking lot was quite full, so we parked at the curb, and I remained with the bikes while Todd went in for the tent. What I had failed to consider was that Todd is apparently a personal target of Wal-Mart in terms of delaying his exit from the store. The last time we went in, the clerk took about 10 minutes to verify the price on a $3.00 item. While waiting for him to return with the new abode, I was able to take a nice nap on the bike, as he met a similar fate. Eventually, he did return-renewing his pledge, once again, to never shop at Wal-Mart again.
It was nearing lunchtime, and although the rain had stopped, our wood would still be too damp to easily make a campfire. We therefore opted to eat out, and stopped at Taco Bell in Pigeon Forge.
While we ate, we discussed our options as to what to do with the rest of the day, and what other things we wanted to see. We agreed that we have pretty much run dry on the museums (except maybe the Elvis museum-no decision there yet). Our main objective with the Smokies for the remainder of the trip is to get in some hiking miles, but with the wet ground, that is pretty much out of the question for today.
Our lunch finished, we headed back to camp to restructure our compound. The little dome tent was emptied, and moved out into the sun to dry out. With a few minutes' effort, we were able to assemble the new cabin-style 10'x12', six-foot-tall tent. I am beginning to wonder how we are going to get everything home that we have acquired so far on the trip. The sleeping bags were hung over the laundry line to dry out, and the duffel bags and various other gear was stowed in the new tent.
Since we could not hike today, we chose instead to ride away from Gatlinburg to the east and see where the road took us. Our first stop was simply labeled "Pebblebrook", with an arrow pointing down a small road off of the highway. It turned out to be a small park within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park system, and the road followed the brook for a period of a few miles.
Although there were no falls on this portion of the creek, there were several "cascades", where the water would drop several levels over a short run of rocks. This made for some very nice visual and aural effects, and we stopped a few places along the way to admire the scenery.
After running the length of the developed road for the park, we resumed our eastward run on the highway. The road took us up and down through this portion of the Le Conte foothills, and eventually let us to the Foothills Highway, a six-mile run with several scenic stopping points. We drove along to the end of the stretch, which empties out onto Interstate 40. We were then able to take I-40 back a couple of miles, and catch the highway that had brought us here. By this time, we had logged about 50 miles, and headed back for camp.
It was approaching 6:00 by the time we returned to camp, and we promptly set about making our standard supper of hot dogs over the fire. Although the wood had been rained on, we had relatively little problem getting a good fire going (thanks to the Fire Sticks from Wally World), and soon had our evening meal ready to go. We each had one of the remaining pair of Pop-Tarts for dessert, and settled back to resume our reading. We had both finished our respective books, so Todd took the cartoonist bio, and I started delving into the case files of mass-murder.
This was not a particularly exciting or action-packed day, but if the whole point of vacation is to relax, I guess we need a couple like this. The weather forecast is clear for the next several days for this region, so we hope to be able to get back to the hiking tomorrow. We have renewed our campsite for tonight and tomorrow night, and tentatively plan to leave Friday morning, with Mammoth Caves in Kentucky being our most likely destination. At this point, we anticipate arriving back in Indy on Saturday evening.
Todd and I can be reached at my CompuServe address (74044,3457), or via Internet at [email protected]. This report is sent via a Canon Innova Book 10C laptop, with a Motorola Power PCMCIA Modem plugged into my MicroTAC Elite, which is dangling from a tent pole in order to get enough signal to transmit properly.