I'm BACK. Again. I see that my last post was in MAY - nearly 6 months ago. (I thought it had been longer, but hey...) I guess I kinda sorta checked out. I didn't mean to, but, well, life. And not bad things, either. Maybe too many good things. But I always return to writing, and so here I am. Sorry it took so long.
The previous post about our Sisters Trip to the Smokies highlighted the wildflowers we saw, the Roots and Rocks we clambered over, and other sights along the Roaring Fork Motor Trail. There were plenty of other things we did inside the park!
One of the first things we did inside the park was head for the Sugarlands Visitor Center, on the Gatlinburg, Tennessee, side of the park, to get our passports stamped! Yes, we are Those People With Passports. But it was jammed with people so we returned a couple of days later SPECIFICALLY to get our Passports stamped. It's an obsession!
The stamps are rubber stamps and they look a lot like round postage cancellation stamps. There was one for the Sugarlands Visitor Center, and another for the Appalachian Trail, which passes through the park end to end for 71 miles, from Fontana Dam to Davenport Gap. I despair of ever getting ALL the stamps because there are national parks outside the contiguous United States in Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with more parks being designated all the time. But it's fun to TRY!
After the ordeal of the so-called "easy" trail at the Bud Ogle cabin off the Roaring Fork Motor Trail, we opted for an "accessible" paved trail close to the Sugarlands Visitor Center. We skipped the one AT the visitor center, but drove a little way into the park to the Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail, which was paved and flat - a nice change from the Bud Ogle trail! The trail is designed to be totally accessible - no rocks or roots or rocky stream crossings or steps up or down. It must be the flattest trail in the entire park! At only a half mile, it was short and fast, but we lingered. Being close to the main road to Newfound Gap, we expected to hear a lot of road noise, but once we got away from the parking area, the quiet descended. With only a couple of others on the trail, we felt far from civilization, but of course, we were NOT. The trail is a loop. We started on the section closest to the road, saving the riverside half for last. There were chimneys remaining from a settlement that used to be in this location and we wondered what it was like to have lived there at the time.
We visited Newfound Gap, but skipped Clingman's Dome. The Gap was busy, but the road to Clingman's Dome was so backed up, we decided to forego the dubious pleasures of an overcrowded park attraction.
On the North Carolina side of the park is the Oconaluftee Visitor Center (more Passport stamps!), and the Mingus Mill, an impressive historic grist mill just a short walk from its own parking area. I have a fascination for water-powered mills, and I was not disappointed, except that it was not milling when we were there. Something wasn't working correctly and they were waiting for The Man to come and fix it. I walked upstream (and uphill!) to where the water to turn the mill wheel is shunted from the river - a nice little hike - again, beside the water and quiet. These mills were engineering marvels!
