13 States - Another Beautiful Swamp, Then Virginia Peninsula

Saturday, May 20

We were getting near the end of the trip and we’d been strategizing how best to space out our journey up the Eastern seaboard so we could get back on Monday while minimizing ridiculous driving days.  But we were too late to cancel our reservation in Virginia Beach (not that much farther North from Elizabeth City) that Saturday night, so that would be impossible.  So we decided not to worry and to enjoy a leisurely Saturday before intense Northward driving, at least that was the plan.

It sure started out that way.  The rain had stopped but it was still pretty overcast and cool.  Another very good but not-perfect breakfast at a very good but not perfect hotel, and then we packed up and hit the road.

Our first stop was going to be the Dismal Swamp, but it was doubtful whether the Northern section of it in Virginia, which is a National Wildlife Refuge and so perhaps preferable, would have many trails.  Instead we stopped in the Southern section of it, which is still in North Carolina and is a State Park.  This was another hidden jewel!

We were the first tourists when we got there at 9 or so, and all two of the staff had just started to set up.  The highway there (route 17) is a straight road running North-South on the East, next to it is the vertical strip of the Dismal Swamp Canal, and on the other side of that is a great VC and the massive swamp itself.

The Canal is part of the Intracoastal Waterway and so needs to be prepared for commerce.  There was none that Saturday morning, but they were officious about us crossing the removable bridge into the Swamp in case a (very small) oil tanker or the President’s flotilla suddenly came steaming down from Norfolk.  George Washington had surveyed the route of the canal after all.

The Ranger had hightailed it for the VC when we arrived and unlocked the doors, but he then disappeared and the whole place was wide open to us and to another couple who arrived next.  It was kind of spooky and the others were especially perturbed.  Were we allowed to be there?  We walked quietly but spent less time than we might have looking at their interpretive exhibits about snakes and indigenous residents and trees.  They also had rooms full of absolutely amazing taxidermy that we wandered through.  We could have spent more time in that VC, but it eventually creeped us out that there was no one there, and we headed outside for the boardwalk trail.

There was less than no one on the boardwalk trail, and we reveled in the privacy.  Just as at Congaree, the boardwalk was needed because the swamp looked like it flooded often.  This isn’t a long trail and we thought about taking a longer one, but all of the trails in the State Park (and apparently in the NWR to the North) are straight, flat paths alongside canals dug through the swamp, so probably wouldn’t have been any more entertaining than what we had just seen.  It was an overcast morning, as was the norm on our trip, and the twisting boardwalk trail was damp and dismal and exciting with its perfect specimens of trees and shrubs and lots of mud all around.  Didn’t see much wildlife that morning, but we heard lots of birds and had time to bid a gentle farewell to Southeast US nature.

Back to the car before the morning got on too much, and we were bound for Colonial National Historical Park, but it was hard to get there.  We took 17 up into Virginia, and then the megalopolis of Eastern VA started up.  This consists of a debatable number of cities, all centering around the Hampton Roads at the South end of Chesapeake Bay, with the James and York Rivers leading off to the West with the Virginia Peninsula between them.  The Google lady prevaricated, and we ended up taking the long way around the Norfolk Virginia (Tidewater 4-1009) beltway, but maybe it was the right way in the long run.

We followed the bridge-tunnel up over and under the Roads into Hampton, vastly entertained by spectacular Navy ships being repaired and impossibly huge container ships being loaded.  You think CT drivers swoop and NJ drivers veer?  You should see VA drivers on the highways of that port megalopolis on a Saturday morning.  We suddenly passed by the famous Hampton Coliseum, scene of some legendary Grateful Dead concerts.  The Google lady had taken over again and was leading us on the best(?) roads towards Jamestown, but navigating this traffic safely took as much concentration as NYC had.

We eventually made it to Jamestown Settlement on a steamy and bright late morning.  The parking lot was rimmed by state flags and was milling with people, most of whom were paying the exorbitant visiting fees and then going on in past the gates.  We used the bathrooms and then sidled up to one of the people taking the money.  Were we in the right place?  She very nicely told us that we weren’t, when we described what we were looking for.  We wanted to see the original Jamestown “Island” rather than the overpriced “Settlement,” where they have lots of docents and reenactors in colonial garb, boring glass-blowing demonstrations, colonial cows, and hush puppies (as I remembered).

We were relieved to get out of that crowded place, on that suddenly hot and hazy morning.  But when we got to the Island we found that this was a rip-off too.  Definitely a more-our-scale kind of place, but when we got inside we realized they wanted $30 per person themselves … for what??  Actually, half of the entrance fee was a National Parks fee and so was covered by my card, but half of it was from Preservation Virginia and was not.  We paid, it but after walking around we did not feel that this fee from Preservation Virginia was merited.

Ignoring what looked like another boring museum, we went out the back door and took their boardwalk over the wetlands to the island that early English settlers had tried to defend and form a life on.  At least we were out in the fresh air again, and it had turned into a lovely, soft day as we strolled along the banks of the James River.  Jamestown Island as a historic site had been largely ignored for many years, but the realization that there was profit in tourism and technical advancements in archaeology had combined in the last century.  And the place is really an interesting and scenic spot, a living museum on the River.  It’s fascinating to wonder what had made these people journey across the ocean in 1607 for a new life and to realize the challenges they had to deal with when they got there, including starvation and hostile inhabitants.

But Sarah and I had our own agenda and were looking for a nice place to hike that day.  We wandered far away from the reconstructed chapel, etc., around the dubiously re-created parts of the island, where they’d placed brick walls where they thought the original settlers’ walls may have been.

That was nice, and there were some lovely river vistas and some old trees and squirrels.  But we were done with that and what we really wanted was the road around the island and the promised trails at the deserted(?) end of it.  But when we got there the road was closed for “turtle season!”  Yeah, we’d seen a good variety of turtles in the wetlands leading out to the island, but I don’t think they would have been very threatened by the small number of cars trying to get out to the point.

Well ok!  It was a beautiful day nonetheless and it was lunch time and the picnic tables were deserted, so we set up our lunch stuff and had a great, mellow time, talking to the squirrels about history.

Colonial National Historical Park consists of three sites arrayed around the Virgina Peninsula: Jamestown Island, Colonial Parkway, and Yorktown Battlefield.  The island is farthest to the West, and we were dreading the task of now fighting the traffic back to Yorktown and then back to Hampton, but the Parkway is another hidden gem.  We got on it, the crowds disappeared, and it was 23 miles of slow, winding curves past marshlands and under well-landscaped overpasses (under a tunnel through “Colonial Williamsburg,” thank Dog) Northeast across the Peninsula towards the banks of the York River.

As I say, Sarah and I are not military buffs, but being an employee at the Minute Man National Historical Park, where the Revolutionary War started, I felt that I *had* to visit Yorktown, where the last battle of the war took place.  And I’m glad I did, though we didn’t spend much time there.

The parking lot in the VC was only a quarter filled for once, and we had time for a short talk with a Ranger before their introductory film.  Unfortunately, the film was embarrassingly poorly produced.  The actors playing the “British” had bad accents, bad wigs, and fell over immediately when “shot.”  This was like a cheap soap opera or an episode of Benny Hill.  They tried to talk up American bravery, but this was not the main plot.  The real story of this climactic battle was that the French fleet kept the British fleet (which had been dispatched from Manhattan to save English bacon) away from the York River and the English were surrounded and had to surrender.  This was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War, though the Treaty Of Paris that officially ended it was still two years in the future.

After the film, the gift shop, and a few exhibits, we went back outside.  The big feature in that section of the Park is a self-guided auto tour around to the key sites.  But after a few admittedly lovely spots with low earthen walls (that were actually reproductions), we bagged and headed back towards the traffic maelstrom.

The afternoon was really getting on by that point, and we had no idea how long it would take us to get back Southeast to the hotel we’d reserved in Virginia Beach, especially seeing how long it had taken us to get to where we were.  We picked up 17 back towards Hampton and then Interstate 64 across the entrance to Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk.  We were delighted that the bridge-tunnel across the Roads was not that bad, and then we were dumped onto route 60 through Norfolk and into Virginia Beach, eventually landing at the Quality Inn Little Creek, which was a very nice cheap and shopworn hotel.  We were there in front of the crowds but then it filled up quickly.

Phew, that had been a long Saturday, unexpectedly filled with traffic and crowds.  We had set ourselves up for an outrageous road day on Sunday, and we were hoping to get to bed early.  Luckily, one of the best dinner options Sarah had found on the web was just a few hundred yards away, and we took a stroll in the searingly sunny late afternoon down to Ole! Restaurante, where we were the first dinner guests.

I had an absolutely delicious tuna and mango dish with delicate rice and beans, and we both had the usual Mexican restaurant drinks.  Back to the room and we had a little energy left, so we got out the cribbage board we had brought all that way, and had a fine game I’m sure, though it was getting on and we had sleep on our minds.

Soon to bed, having traveled 172.7, really challenging miles that day.

 

13 States - Long Rainy Beach Day

Friday, May 19

OK, this was going to be our day to get back to the coast and see the beach in North Carolina’s Outer Banks!  The thing was, it was still raining hard.  But at this point we had no options and figured maybe the bad weather would keep the crowds away.  We were wrong.

First breakfast, hostessed by some wonderful staff.  Everyone there was very friendly, maybe a little too friendly and eager to talk to us older types from the North.  We got everything packed up and stuffed into the car, ready to change to beach gear from the mountain and swamp gear we’d been using before.

If you asked Google, the Lady would tell you to get back to the Interstate and head East out 64 to get to the Outer Banks.  But we wanted to see stuff, and route 264 from Greenville continues down the Pamlico River and along Pamlico Sound, which is the Southern part of the huge area of ocean bounded by the Outer Banks.  We went that way instead and it was deserted and marvelous, though rainy.  Endless farms and deserted swamps were on our left and off to our right were small towns with fishing fleets.  We drove and drove and drove through a steady, pounding rain, under an overcast, gray-blue sky, on long, straight stretches of road with no billboards, very few other cars, and National Wildlife Refuges to our left and right.  This was one of the best driving experiences of the trip.

We got all the way out past Stumpy Point in Dare County, and then turned North and eventually re-joined route 64 (with its traffic), over the bridge to Roanoke Island.  In retrospect, we then should have gone up to Fort Raleigh on Roanoke Island, near where the famous first English settlement in North America was located, and the Virginia Dare mystery occurred.  But we were determined to get to Cape Hatteras and possibly Ocracoke Island beyond that.  There was an information center on Roanoke Island and after reviewing the distances, roads, and ferries involved we realized there was not enough time left in the day to do all that.  But we’d see how far down the Outer Banks we could get before having to turn back North.  And we hoped there’d be the possibility of a nice walk on the beach or around the dunes.

Most of the Southern part of the Outer Banks is the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, with some towns thrown into the middle of it.  I’d been on a family vacation there in March of 1968(?) and remembered it as deserted and quiet.  Not in 2023 however!  When we turned South on route 12 in Whalebone there was tourist sprawl, expensive restaurants, highway overpasses, and gated communities as far as you could see.  We’d been thinking about stopping somewhere for lunch, but the sprawl alarmed us and we decided to head South and see if we could get away from it.

After a few miles things were looking a lot more sane; this was a beach road like we knew from the Cape or the Big Island, and we started to see intriguing possibilities for a lunch stop.  But it was still raining.  We stopped at Bodie Island VC (which was actually closed for the Rangers’ lunch) and walked out their boardwalk into the salt marsh.  We saw several nutrias in the grasses around the boardwalk and lots of wading birds in the marsh.  Still raining, and no covered picnic area.  We also looked across the island at Coquina Beach, hoping for a shelter with a nice view.  But there was nothing there and the rain got even more intense, so we kept on South over the bridge crossing the Oregon Inlet onto Hatteras Island itself.

This was a beautiful stretch, and a few miles down Hatteras Island we saw a pretty empty parking lot for the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, where we pulled in and were able to get a parking spot where we could see out over the dunes and eat the Mexican food we had in the cooler.  A microwave would have been nice, but we were hungry and the food tasted fine.

Stopped in their VC next, after getting a short view of the stormy Atlantic from their deck.  No beach walk today, the onshore gale was ferocious, the heavy rain was horizontal, and the beach there would actually have been dangerous the way the waves were beating the shore.  We saw something weird in the water too, inside we learned that this was the remains of one of the boilers of the Oriental, which wrecked there in 1862.

One volunteer inside had set up expensive binoculars and telescopes for viewing the wildlife in the marsh, and she pointed out a few things for us.  Another volunteer had oodles of information about the wildlife and plants we could see on the Outer Banks.  And the NWR has a trail system that we would have loved on a sunny day.  We wanted to go bird-watching, but it was rainy and foggy and incredibly windy, so we got back in the car and headed further South.  Oh well.

Miles and miles of lovely barrier island, interrupted once in a while by a beach town with run-down hotels, wildly expensive real estate, and weird restaurants.  We finally made it to Hatteras Island VC itself, and the rain was as bad as ever.  They had a sheltered area where we had some time to stretch and view their classy old lighthouse.  Stopped in the VC for a quick visit, but soon were back on the return road for the North.  The afternoon was almost gone and we had a long way to go.

When we made it back up to Bodie Island we went back into the lighthouse parking area for a bathroom break, and the VC was now open, so we stopped in.  The lighthouse itself was open too, but we would have had to book tickets online and it just didn’t work out.  A climb up the lighthouse was tempting, but the visibility would have been a disappointment and it would have been claustrophobic inside, so we opted out.  Plenty of other people were looking for things to do in the rain too.

Back in the car and as soon as we got North of the National Seashore, the tourist sprawl surrounded us.  When my family had rented a seaside shack in Nags Head in the late 60s there had been nothing there but a sleepy two-lane highway, a line of houses next to it, and then the ocean.  But now the highway was two mad lanes of speeding traffic on each side, the row of houses was an endless series of gated communities, and the ocean was not in sight.  We thought about stopping at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills (I remembered climbing massive sand dunes there).  We saw the sign for the National Memorial, but we just wanted to keep on North and see if this oppressive sprawl would end.

Eventually the road turned West to cross Currituck Sound back to the mainland, and we left the tourist sprawl behind as we motored inland.  But it was still miles and miles after that before the traffic calmed down.  We stayed on route 158, West towards Elizabeth City when route 168 split off to the North towards the big cities in Southeast Virginia, and most of the traffic kept going that way fortunately.  We were back on a rural highway, with huge farms dotting to the left and the right, interrupted by billboards advertising personal injury lawyers, and by small clusters of shops, always including a dollar store and usually a gun store or two.

The rain finally slowed and then stopped as we drove along, and the late afternoon started turning sunny and warming up.  Then, just as we pulled into Elizabeth City after a long day of driving, we saw a sign announcing that the Potato Festival was starting that very day!  You can imagine our excitement.

What is the Potato Festival you ask?  Well, the next morning a local waitress (who called herself a proud Elizabeth City resident) was trying to describe it for a couple of tourists.  She said, “We have a beautiful downtown you should go see, but oh, you probably shouldn’t try it today because all the streets downtown will be closed for the Potato Festival.  Nobody goes to the Festival any more, it’s too crowded.  But the kids love it.  Some vendors give out free French fries and … well, there’s a potato peeling contest!”  She pretty much summed it up right there from our experience.

Because, we went to the Festival!  Kind of.  Accidentally.  We checked into the Fairfield Inn and Suites, decompressed and hung up our wet clothes, and looked online for a restaurant with a good beer list.  The one Sarah found (the Cypress Creek Grill) was right downtown, and though streets were shut down and parking was hard to find, we got a space and managed to find the restaurant.  Which as it turns out was right in the middle of the festivities.  They were crowded and short-staffed (and the air conditioning was blasting there), but we got an Avdet Hazy IPA and a Raspberry Bramble, and a fine meal.

The Grill is right on the main town common, and they’d set up a stage at one end and a beer garden at the other.  We crossed over to see their harbor on the Pasquotank River, which opens out onto the Albemarle Sound, the big Northern bay of the huge swath of water enclosed by the Outer Banks.

There was a band doing a very amateurish cover of John Denver’s Country Roads, and a few people in the crowd were singing along.  It was a nice scene, but we didn’t spend much time there, found where we’d parked the car, and then got back to the Fairfield Inn for a game of Parks in their breakfast area.

Quite an exhausting day, but time for bed after traveling 321.5 rainy miles.

 

13 States - Long Rainy Road Day

Thursday, May 18

They had a pretty passable breakfast in the very empty and huge SpringHill Suites.  All the hotels we patronized on that trip that served eggs and meat for breakfast cooked them very well, and there were sometimes very good pastry selections.  They had raspberry and blueberry scones that morning, which were great.  But as I say, all the hotels on this trip get mixed reviews.  The SpringHill Suites in Orangeburg had outrageously long hallways, slow elevators, and a really weird room layout that tried, unsuccessfully, to make us think we were in a suite.

It was raining and it was one of those mornings where it looks like the rain is never going to stop.  We weren’t daunted and did our morning routine anyway, including refilling the cooler with ice from their machine and cycling dirty laundry into plastic bags.  We were pretty good at traveling by this point and laid the Mexican food gingerly on top of the ice and stuff in the cooler.  We’d had to throw out earlier leftovers when they tipped into the ice, and the cheese we had in there was getting pretty waterlogged too.

We hit the road and drove the 40 miles back up North to Congaree, looking for another hike.  Because the ground was so wet we decided to stick to the boardwalk this time, which is about a 2.5 mile circuit.  I took along an umbrella but closed it soon, we were there to look up into the trees and I really didn’t care if I got a little wet.  The silence in the deep swamp with the massive trees and the sound of rain all around was awesome.

There were a few people out, who all walked faster than we did.  We saw a lot of wildlife on that hike, including the sad sight of a dead feral pig near the trail and presumably her litter hiding in the woods about 20 yards away, scared of the people.  Later on we saw deer, rabbits, and a good number of fox squirrels, a variant of the squirrel we’d never seen before.  There were also many butterflies, millipedes, snails, and slugs, though the skinks were apparently all inside watching TV.  We stopped at an overview of an oxbow lake and watched turtles of several species and sizes paddle around like they were going somewhere.  They have very nice interpretive signage on the Boardwalk Loop Trail, we found Congaree to be such a charming, small National Park.

But it was time to head out and we knew we had a long road in front of us, hoping to get far East in North Carolina before the end of the day.  The Google Lady sent us looping back up to the Interstates in Columbia, and we thought that being this close to a big city might mean that we could find a nice restaurant for a good lunch before the road.  Sarah found one in the middle of the city, a few blocks from the capitol building, but when we got there it was closed!  And the spooky thing was that downtown Columbia was deserted, like a post-apocalyptic movie.  This was lunchtime on a weekday, but there were no office workers out and about.  It started raining harder.

But we realized there was another place on that block, a Mediterranean restaurant named Green Olive, at which I got a Greek pilsner and an excellent white bean salad.  Sarah got lamb shawarma.  Two other tables were occupied and the restaurant was as quiet as a church.

Time to hit the road out of the deserted city.  Interstates 77 and 20 sure weren’t deserted though.  They were filled with trucks and it was pouring as we made our way miles and miles East to Interstate 95.  And when we got there and started traveling North, all the trucks and rain came with us.

Finally crossed into North Carolina and the rain let up some, but then the construction started.  For all of route 95 in North Carolina, you had a mile of thick traffic going as fast as it could, then a mile of roadwork where the road surface was horrible, the lanes were non-existent, and the traffic sped up!  We would break clear and the “roadwork ends” signs would appear, we’d think we were finally out of it, and then a mile later they were back tearing up the highway again.  This went on and on, over and over as we hurtled North.  Thanks Biden!  At one point the Google Lady had us exit onto local roads to circumvent 10 miles of almost stopped traffic.

Our destination was the Holiday Inn in Greenville and we finally exited 95 onto route 264, but still had 45 or so miles to go before we got there.  The rain stuck around all that time, but was just a warm mist by the time we got there and checked into a nice 3rd floor room overlooking the pool in the showing-its-age Holiday Inn.  It took us a bit of time to decompress.

My theory about there being good restaurants in college towns held up this time, and we drove a few miles over to Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint, which was crowded with young adults.  The rain had stopped and the evening was suddenly breezy and hot.  Had some excellent burgers and fries there from a very efficient waitress, and I had a Spruce Tip IPA from the Amor Artis brewery.

Back to the hotel and soon to bed, after a wonderful morning walk, lots of rain, and 332.4 grueling miles.

13 States - A Beautiful Swamp

Wednesday, May 17

There were some strong thunderstorms overnight, and some weird lights focused on our windows, though we couldn’t place the lights in the early morning.  Spartanburg was a bit of a strange place.  We were definitely in the middle of an Interstate and railroad track (and UFO?) nexus.  Train whistles sounded in the distance throughout the stormy night.

But the funny thing is that we had a good night sleep and we kinda liked the hotel.  Mixed reviews of course, but good privacy, a cheery place, and good breakfast.  We also liked the fact that they had the community rules (it was a “residence inn” after all) spelled out on the table when we went in.  None of them applied to us of course.

OK, it was going to start off as another driving day.  We were in the Northwest part of South Carolina (which is a surprisingly big state) and were bound for the center of it.  We were going to Congaree National Park, which is a bit South of the capital, Columbia.  Drove Southeast for a couple of hours from Spartanburg and exited Interstate 77 West of Columbia, onto route 48.

I’ve referred before to my itch to get out on the roads in the middle of America and cruise way down them and see what was there.  South of Columbia was exactly what I wanted.  The road was pretty straight and well-maintained and the houses were spaced apart well and all looked lived in if not loved.  We saw a lot of brick, one-floor layouts in our trip, and most of them were in pretty good shape.  Sometimes you’d see wood shacks that were returning to the earth, but mostly if there was a house it was occupied.  Though South Carolina is “solid red” according to the news media, we saw very few indications as to political preference.  Thought we’d see a few school committee signs at least, but it was just lawns in various shapes, pickups (and maybe some dead vehicles) in every yard, lots of speed limit and school district signs, and dollar stores.  Sarah and I couldn’t believe that so few farms and villages supported so many schools.

We were far from the mountains now, on flat, flat roads that wound between high vegetation.  Eventually we saw a few signs for Congaree NP and pulled in.  We’d arrived at a weird time for the NP.  Synchronous fireflies (not making this up) assemble there in late May and this phenomenon took top priority at the Park, fireflies more important than visitors.  But we were free to explore until 4PM, which we did.

We started at the Hampton VC (the only one, it’s a small Park) and they have a great film, which stoked our enthusiasm.  They also have some great displays there.  One we loved showed an array of trees you find in the Park, facts about them and specs on the champions in each category.

Congaree is basically a swamp, a huge floodplain in which water levels can vary by six feet.  It’s on the long plains that extend from the base of the mountains we were just in to the Atlantic, and host slow-moving rivers that become the big port rivers of South Carolina and Georgia.  A timber baron from Chicago bought the whole area after the Civil War, but for various reasons didn’t clearcut it, and his descendants kind of forgot about the place.  It was eventually saved by locals such as newspaperman Harry Hampton, who realized that it had become one of the largest stands of old-growth trees left in the East and lobbied for its preservation.

It was an overcast, hot and humid day when we got there, and we loved Congaree in spite of this.  They had a “mosquito meter,” but it was laughable.  They think a couple of mosquitos warrants a high alert level?  They should see the woods of New England.  A volunteer talked to us as soon as we arrived and laid out our options for a hike.  The funny thing was when I asked about “feral hogs” he thought I said “hawks” and much confusion ensued.  Yeah, he admitted that feral pigs were a problem there but that they were generally not far descended from domestic stock and they took off at the sight/sound of humans.

After the great film, some exhibit time, and a nice talk with the Ranger and book store person, we took off for the Boardwalk Loop Trail (you have to start on that) and then decamped to the Sims Trail as soon as we could, on a very low dike cut through the forest, very gently downhill towards the Congaree River.  We were surrounded by Swamp Tupelos, Bald Cypresses, Loblolly Pines, and many species of oak, ash, and beech.  For many of these species there is a Champion Tree in Congaree, the most majestic specimen of that type, calculated by formulae that take into consideration height, mass, girth, spread of canopy, etc.  It didn’t take many “will you look at that?” trees for us to walk a little slower and realize we were in a hall of ancients.

Besides the living trees, there was switch cane and rhododendron bushes, vines, and some huge bushes of honeysuckle and other ground cover in the spaces left by dead trees.  But basically it was thousands of huge, magical, venerable, and dirty trees popping up from the mud, clay, and sand.  We were a little surprised how many people were out on the trails, but for a change we let them all pass us by as we wandered along, stunned and delighted by the giants.  The Bald Cypresses rose up and up and then exploded into crowns of delicate needles.  There were plenty of fallen trees as well as living ones, with bark etched by worms, some trees sprouting fungi we’d never seen before.

There was a cultural aspect to the Park too.  Groups of escaped enslaved people formed communities in the South Carolina swamps, where slave catchers would have to put up with some hostility from nature to catch them.  We were blessed that day to hear and see many species of birds, lots of colorful skinks running up and down the infrastructure of the boardwalk, and to see a ring-tailed raccoon, meandering along one of the guts (ephemeral creeks).  And you have to see cypress knees or you will not believe them.

From the Sims Trail we took a left on the Weston Lake Trail, which ran along Cedar Creek, which in some place was moving but in others seemed to us to just be sitting there.  There isn’t much vertical drop to excite the water around there, except when it really backs up and covers the boardwalk and trails.  The funny thing is that there is some elevation change and you can tell it by the underbrush, which changes a lot with just a vertical foot’s difference.  There were also lots of pellets of debris probably from owls, mounds of mud made by insects, and animal holes.  Probably not a great place to camp; we didn’t see any snakes but knew they were close by.

A couple of even lazier guts ran into the creek, and these are reconfigured with each flood.  When the area floods the water level can rise by up to six feet and we could see rings on the trees that high.  Foot bridges had been built here and there over the wettest places, and after one we took a detour down a social trail to the right that the Ranger had told us about.  She said the current Champion Loblolly Pine was down there and when we found it, it was majestic.  We came pretty close to hugging a few trees that day, they welcomed us to their swamp and we felt blessed.

Looped back around to a short stretch of the boardwalk trail, and then rejoined the Sims Trail up to the Firefly Trail to return to the Harry Hampton VC.  In all we did about a 6 mile circuit and though it had been very level, the temperature and humidity were both getting up there and we were very glad to pop back into the air-conditioned VC for a bit.

Back out to the car after that and they had a nest of nice picnic tables in the shade, totally deserted.  We grabbed one and had a very late and mellow PB&J lunch.  There was a hard stop at 4:00 for all visitors so they wouldn’t disturb the gathering synchronous fireflies, and the Park started to close down by 3:45 or so, just as we were ready to leave.  One of the best things about small, modest, beautiful Parks like this is knowing you’re coming back, and we were definitely going back there the next day!

Horrible news reached us as we continued East on route 48 in Gadsden, and then South on 601.  Our nephew had died in a household accident and we realized we wouldn’t be able to get back up North in time for his funeral.

More middle of nowhere in South Carolina, heading down to the SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Orangeburg.  Congaree is so remote that the nearest hotels are back North in Columbia or 40 miles South, just North of Orangeburg, and we opted for the smaller town.  We lucked out on a great dinner place, going to Rosalía’s right in the middle of Orangeburg, as far South as we got on the trip.  Sarah had a house margarita and I got a huge mug of Dos Equis and their House Special, a 10-ounce ribeye steak with six shrimp.  I probably ate less than half of it and Sarah couldn’t finish her dinner either, so we took out a huge thing of meat, rice, and beans, which we made good use of later.

Back to the second floor of the SpringHill Suites and soon to bed, after traveling 186.1 miles that day.

13 States - Over the Mountains To South Carolina

Tuesday, May 16

I do exercises every morning for my back stenosis, and I’ve been having knee and hip issues (arthritis), so the physical therapist has assigned me a lot more.  So early morning is a production for me, even more so on the road.  But I eventually got down to breakfast with Sarah and coffee, and explored what we could do that day.

The Ranger who had given us some great tips on Monday had also mentioned the Grotto Falls on the Trillium Gap Trail, apparently because of where we were staying.  This is on a driving loop trail from Gatlinburg, near the hotel, and we realized we could do that loop and maybe hike down to the falls that morning, depending on what time it was when we got there, and still have time for other stops on our way to South Carolina.

BIG MISTAKE!!!  Do not commit to the Fork Motor Nature Trail unless you want to eat your liver out.  We waved a few cars in front of us at the beginning of that trail, initially enchanted by the mosses and ferns.  But then we caught up to those same cars and we followed them in a line of brake lights for the next 10 miles.

The road wound up 5 miles or so to the Trillium Gap Trail (parking lots full at 9AM on a Tuesday so we didn’t stop), and then 5 miles down back into town.  There were some beautiful woodside moments all right and Sarah took some pictures, but we were in a fucking line of traffic!  I have no idea how many cars there were in front of me or behind me, or whether those are rational numbers.  We probably averaged under 5MPH for that 10-mile section.  At times people were turning off their cars and getting out while (e.g.) a huge mini-van dispersed everyone on a particular turn, so they could take selfies and panoramas of the woods that might hold bears (not).

Well, there were some good moments there but we’d just wasted a couple of hours.  We drove back through town, being careful not to run over any distracted Gatlinburg pedestrians in our rush to get out of there.  We stopped at a gas station, and let me digress to say that there wasn’t really much difference in gas prices in all of the 13 states we visited.  I realized it would be more of an effort than it would be worth it to try to psych out where to refill, we just let the tank run down to a quarter or so and that dictated where we got gas.  I didn’t feel ripped off at any of the stations, particularly, though many places disguised their actual credit prices.

OK, we entered GSMNP for the last(?) time, stopped at Sugarlands VC for a day parking voucher, and then headed Southeast for the heights of the park, up to the North Carolina border.  At the crest of the ridge of the Smokies is a big junction of the borders of TN and NC and the AT (Appalachian Trail).  This is Newfound Gap, and again, the crowds had preceded us there.

The weather hadn’t bothered us much on the driving trail that morning, but was unsettled.  By the time we got up to Newfound Gap there seemed to be a little electricity in the air, and the clouds were starting to swirl through the gap at 5000 feet.  We were lucky to get a prime parking spot (the lot was full and cars were circling), but gave it up soon as it turned out.  After climbing their monument with a hundred psyched people of various sorts, and several AT hikers who wanted to check it off in their personal records, we decided to opt out.  The flagstones were loose, the walkways were packed, kids and strollers were everywhere, and we got out of there before there was an accident … or a lightning strike.

Where we were headed was Clingmans Dome, the summit of the Park, but we expected that the thunderstorms would get there before we did.  And we figured there’d be a whole lot of people up there too, and we were right.

It was a beautiful drive up to the peak at 6643 feet, though the clouds were threatening and the fog was closing in, and we didn’t really get there.  Conifers dominated the creases in the mountains, like they hadn’t down below, and so it was a new shade of green.  I swear we weren’t that far away from thunderstorm weather, though a Ranger was telling people that the electricity wouldn’t start until that afternoon.

We got a space in the huge parking lot, one of the only ones left.  We were psyched and geared up, we were going to hike up to Clingman’s Dome and the observation platforms there.  But so were many other people of various body shapes and sizes, it was like the Laurel Falls trail the other day, even worse.  Did these people not realize that the current fog and the imminent lightning might detract seriously from their visit?  I have to say, we realized that, short of being oblivious to the weather, many people just didn’t care.  They were going to go to Clingmans Dome for better or worse, goldarnit, and hopefully snap some selfies when they got there.  I really admired the spirit (the gift shop was doing a brisk business selling sweatshirts and raincoats to the unprepared people clad in sandals and t-shirts), but Sarah and I, after going a few hundred yards up the crowded trail and realizing it would not be a nature experience, decided to head back to the car.  Actually, she went to the small VC and I went to the port-a-potty lines.

Back at the car I cracked the bag of Doritos and sat there on the back hatch, watching the clouds (which suddenly seemed less threatening) and eating Doritos while waiting for Sarah.  Thus, to several groups of tourists from various States, I was the enduring symbol of Clingman’s Dome as they exited the parking lot.  One driver yelled at his wife, “Hey!  He’s eating Doritos.  We shoulda brought some.”  I thought about flipping him off, but instead just smiled and gave him a big shrug, like it was a TV commercial and he was the loser.

So, back in the car and we shot down from Clingmans Dome, now in North Carolina rather than Tennessee, on the Newfound Gap Road, headed for the Oconaluftee VC.  We thought we might find a little more space in the North Carolina part of the Park.  The trees and the whole feel were different as we descended mile and miles of switchbacks down the Southeast side of the Appalachians.  Finally we got down to the Oconaluftee Valley and to the genteel VC … only to find very few spaces there and have it be crawling with people!

We were dying to stop somewhere nice for a PB&J lunch out of our ice chest, but there weren’t any picnic tables there and the crowds and sudden heat from the bright day (no storm clouds in this valley) were oppressive.  We had planned to go from there back to the Blue Ridge Parkway after lunch, but instead we gave up on the VC immediately and got back on the road Southeast.  In a few hundred yards were signs to turn off for the Parkway, we were the only car to do so and suddenly we were back in a beautiful and deserted world.

GSMNP has some great strengths, and we loved the largeness of it, the secret trail we’d experienced, the raging Little River, and the knowledge that there were plenty of other discoveries there.  But golly, did they have a lot of people enjoying the Park.  This is the audience the NPS is chartered to serve … Americans …  and they were doing a great job of it, and we think this is admirable.  We also love the “preserve” part of the Antiquities Act and were delighted to see attempts at preservation in GSMNP.  But that Park was not for us because of its scale and popularity.

The funny thing was, when we turned onto the Parkway it was like we’d gone through a portal to a different world.  We pulled over as soon as possible, at the Oconaluftee River Overlook, and were pretty much across the river from the Oconaluftee VC, which had been packed and frantic while our overlook was deserted, and much quieter.  We had a fine lunch, looking up at the steep mountains to our West.

Time to gush about the Blue Ridge Parkway again.  We got on at the South terminus, but even though we were “Northbound” on the Parkway, the road headed South and East for another forty miles or so.  And these miles were as glorious as those we’d traveled on the other end of the Blue Ridge.  We stopped at a lot of overlooks and just drank in the views of the rolling mountains, the parades of Springtime green up to the high elevations, and the incredible afternoon light, perhaps made more dramatic by the dark clouds on the mountains we were leaving behind.  We stopped at the highest point on the Blue Ridge at 6053 feet.

We’d been living in  world of people and Interstate highways for several days, and were exhilarated to be free of that, in arguably a more lovely environment.  We were up on the ridge, looking South and East to the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Cherokee.  We must have stopped at a dozen overlooks and the average “other car” number there must have been about 0.5.  The road itself was mostly a solitary experience, though there were spotty packs of motorcyclists and a good number of sports cars.  Some people were out there for a fast cruise around the dramatic corners rather than a leisurely drive, but it all worked.

We got all the way up to the Pisgah Inn area soon after the highest point, and soon after the Looking Glass Rock Overlook [https://www.nps.gov/places/looking-glass-rock-overlook.htm] and then realized that we’d missed our exit.  No reception for the Google Lady up there.  In some ways we wanted to follow the Blue Ridge all the way back to Waynesboro (wait a minute!), but in other ways we knew we needed to jump off and head due South, like now.  We suddenly didn’t have a lot of time to get to our destination of Spartanburg SC.

We turned off the Parkway onto route 276, going down and down and down past the Cradle of Forestry site, in the middle of Pisgah National Forest.  This was an incredible rush of the season getting further and further along as we descended, and the sun getting brighter and brighter as the afternoon progressed.  We just had to stop at the Looking Glass Rock Scenic Area, where there’s a spectacular falls right off the road.  We walked up to the falls, snapped a few pix, and then took off again, along route 64 in the depths of furthest Southwest North Carolina.

Serendipity struck again, and there was a supermarket on the route, just when we needed it.  We got beer, cider, and water, figuring that our stock of PB&J would hold up.  Soon after that it was back on Interstate 26 Southeast, eventually into South Carolina, and after many more miles than expected, we pulled into the Residence Inn by Marriott.  According to the front desk clerk, this was the original “residence inn.”  The rooms were actually suites, upstairs and downstairs in densely packed townhouses surrounding a common pool and recreation area.  We got a suite with a kitchen and a full-sized refrigerator.  Too bad we were only there for a night because we liked the place and could have gotten more dishes dirty.  And we only had a few things to put in the refrigerator.

The bad news was that there was really nowhere better to eat dinner than at the Cracker Barrel across the parking lot.  We made the best of a bad situation though and had a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel, with a Budweiser and a Bundaberg ginger beer.  They cook everything there very delicately, and use tasteless ingredients, and this is very successful.  Their aim seems to be to offend no one’s palate, which ideal was worth experiencing once.

Seemed like we drove a lot more than the odometer said, but the final reading that day was 174 miles, many of them winding up and down mountain roads.

13 States - The Little River In GSMNP

Monday, May 15

We were in a Hampton Inn and so of course the breakfast and the sunny and spacious breakfast room was what you’d expect from a Hampton Inn, and we were soothed by that.  We gritted our teeth for what we’d find outside though, packed up for the day (we were going to stay in that room two nights, so packing was easy), and headed out through the tourist town for the most visited National Park in the country, hoping that a Monday in a shoulder season (school in session still) would be fine.

National Parks need to get revenue from visitors and sometimes approach it differently.  Some, like Acadia and Shenandoah, charge high entrance fees.  This is partly because there are not a lot of ways to enter the Parks, and so the revenue stream can be controlled.  Others, like Great Smoky Mountains National Park, have many entrances and have to get revenue from visitors in other ways.  GSMNP charged parking fees: you had to get a pass each day (you could buy weekly and monthly ones) and this was not covered by my Parks pass.  But whatever, we squeezed into one of the last parking places at the Sugarlands VC after somehow getting out of already happening downtown Gatlinburg, and were glad to buy a day parking pass at the kiosk.  We support our Parks.  The other visitors were mostly older couples from the South, very young families with pre-school kids, or groups from other countries.

I have to say that, though it was a crowd experience, I was thrilled to be in the main VC of the most popular National Park in the country, a place I’d wanted to visit for a long time.  Though it was pretty packed, we didn’t have to wait in line to talk to a Ranger since most of the people there were after the restrooms or the gift shop.  I told the guy, “We’ve read on your website about the most popular trails in the Park.”  He nodded, perhaps weighing my Northern accent.  “But what we want is a 3-5 mile trail that *isn’t* popular.”  He nodded again.

As it turned out, we were visitors from Massachusetts and his mother was a Yankees fan who would give him a hard time for assisting the enemy.  But we told him that actually we were Bruins fans, and that was ok.  He was too and we commiserated.  His first recommendation was the Laurel Falls Trail, but he got excited when he said what he really recommended was the Little River Trail, which told us what we wanted to know.  He gave us directions to both.

I wanted to buy a hat at one of the Parks we hadn’t been to before, and I scored a nice one in their gift shop.  We then went to the map kiosk and picked up the maps we needed for a few bucks.  As I say, they needed to make revenue somehow.

Though we’d had some overcast weather the last few days and it was forecast to continue, it was a fine, partly cloudy day with some patches of brilliant sunshine.  And the temperature was not bad.  We’d packed for very hot days in Tennessee and the Carolinas, but with the elevation we were at the temperature stayed in the low 70s.  And though there’d been rain recently, the humidity was no problem.  We had brought bug spray, but this was nowhere near the bug level you get on a sunny Spring day in New England.

OK, we got out of the frantic Sugarlands VC (one of the circling cars grabbed our space right away) and headed Southwest on the Little River Road.  After a few miles we were just able to snag a legal parking space in the Laurel Falls lot, and we geared up and headed up that trail.

We were so delighted to be in the Great Smoky Mountains and to see the laurel and other flowering plants blooming gloriously all around us!  There were plenty of others on the trail and the Park maintenance guys had apparently tried to pave it in the distant past, though the pavement that was left after years of neglect and erosion was treacherous sometimes.  We realized that the Ranger had steered us first to a well-used trail, which was fine with us because it was a good introduction to the Park.  Many people on the trail were at their limit, climbing up the steep switchbacks but nevertheless enjoying themselves like you wouldn’t believe.  It was a parade of families with strollers(!) and older couples with a very few fitter types, all climbing up the sharp incline towards the falls on a glorious day.

Didn’t see any wildlife on that trail (except a millipede), and didn’t expect to.  But we saw lots of flora and some exposed cliffs.  We also saw lots of people and kind of enjoyed watching them.  As I say, a lot of the tourists were huffing and puffing but were mostly enjoying pushing themselves.  On the way down, we saw a Search and Rescue crew going up the trail after a person who’d apparently sprained his/her ankle.  This was apparently a routine day at the Park.

We reached the Laurel Falls and they were ok, not really worth the climb.  But hordes of poorly-balanced people were trying to take pictures and that plateau on the rocks did not look like a good place to stop, so we kept moving up the trail.  On the way down we saw one tourist slip at the base of the falls and crack his camera on the rock, at least he didn’t crack his head or slip down the couple-of-hundred feet to the chasm below.  Signs warned us that people had died there and so we should restrain our kids.

Up past the falls the hordes disappeared and we kept on going for a while, hoping for a good vista of the surrounding mountains somewhere.  But everything was mostly leafed out and though we were up high we were still in a jungle of trees and flowering shrubs.  Got to a couple of places where we could barely peek out and see the valley, but then bagged and went back downhill.  It was longer to the parking lot than we’d thought by this time.

OK, now for the Little River Trail, and hopefully a good wilderness experience in the Nation’s most visited Park, and it sure was!  To get there you go by Elkmont, one of the major campsites in the Park.  The Ranger had told us that if the first parking lot was full (which it was), go on to the second.  This meant that the trailhead we were at was for a different trail than he had recommended, but we looked at the map and realized we could start off on the Jakes Creek Trail and then loop over to the Little River Trail on the Cucumber Gap Trail.  Hah!  Sounds easier than it actually was.

We geared up and then started up a good slope alongside raging Jakes Creek.  There were deserted campsites on the way, a whole series of wilderness cabins that had burned down and only the masonry remained.  We turned even more uphill onto the Cucumber Gap Trail after a steep half mile or so, and followed that for several miles.  It soon left the forest road we’d started on and wound uphill through a magic forest.

All along, we’d been seeing trees we couldn’t identify, as well as plenty that looked familiar, such as the ashes and beeches.  There were conifers too, but not on this uphill slope.  The tree that predominated there was the Tuliptree, that made wonderful, complicated flowers and dropped them on the trail.  We were climbing uphill through a vast forest of them, tall sentinels surrounding us, as well as thickets of rhododendrons and thick vines.  The trail, and we, wove in and out through creases in the hillside, always going up and up.  Several times I could see daylight on the tops of the ridges and thought we might crest them, but we kept switching back and forth and going up and up.

We finally crested a last, high ridge and then were going down and down, towards the sounds of rushing water.  We forded across a branch of the Little River, where we met a group of young people going the other way, with a Bluetooth speaker giving them the beats.  We saw only six or seven other groups on that trail, which was amazingly deserted for that huge and crowded National Park.  Eventually we made it to the end of the Cucumber Gap Trail (didn’t see any cucumbers, must have been the wrong season) at a big intersection, and we took a break for water and granola bars.  We then kept downhill, down the Little River Trail and back towards the Elkmont camping area.  We were deep in the forest and there was a wilderness camp off to our right.  There was a passing shower during our break, but the sky soon cleared up again, though we could barely see it in the tunnel of trees down the raging river.

The Little River was just incredible.  We were hiking down and down on a steady slope, and the river crashed along to our right, sometimes going away and then coming back.  It was the opposite of gentle, always totally serious about getting that water downhill over those boulders and around those logs and those sand banks as fast as it could.  Several cascades rushed down the steep banks to our left and joined the raging river, while we stood there and gaped.  I can’t describe how beautiful it was.  We’d already done 900’ of elevation(?) on that loop as well as some serious elevation that morning, and my knees and hips were beginning to complain.  But we were going downhill and the river right next to us was untamed and there just for us (and a few others who were enjoying the hike as much as we were).

Eventually the abandoned, burnt-out-except-for-masonry huts started up again and we knew we were getting near the camping area.  We got to the first parking lot and still had a bit of a trek uphill to the second one, where we hugged our car and had a great PB&J lunch on the tailgate, late in the afternoon.  That was a fun hike.

Decompressed for a while there and then I washed my hands in the cold creek while Sarah toured another group of abandoned camping huts called Daisy Town.  Got saddled up eventually and made our way back past the VC and into Gatlinburg, which was rocking.  We made it back to our aerie on the fifth floor of the Hampton Inn, overlooking mountains, and debated about whether we wanted to go out again.

Though we’d had a late lunch, we were starving and actually considered going back to the Brewhouse or to somewhere like Bubba Gump’s.  Sarah was looking for alternatives, but there weren’t a great number of Jon&Sarah-friendly places.  She eventually found The Peddler Steakhouse, which had pretty high prices but might have acceptable beers.  Drove over there and of course the parking lot was full and the place was packed, perhaps with your more deep-pocketed hillbillys.

Snark aside, we got a very nice table in the “lounge” area (as opposed to the “dining room”), I got an acceptable beer, and they had a great salad bar.  You had to order a high-cholesterol meal after that, and Sarah got the prime rib while I got the portobello chicken.  How long will it be until I realize, if you go to a steakhouse, order the steak (or prime rib)??  Anyway, my chicken was acceptable and I didn’t have too much of an upset stomach that night from the richness of the food.

The people on the streets of Gatlinburg were looking more and more zombie-ish, but we safely got back to the hotel at last.  We played the Parks game in their nice breakfast room.  A guy we’d met on the trail was there too and wanted to talk, but we didn’t stay long and soon got to bed.

We’d done about 1300’ of elevation that day, in addition to a lot of mileage on the two trails.  The odometer showed 314.9 miles, but most if it was actually from the day before on the way down from West Virginia.

13 States - Down To Tennessee

Sunday, May 14

Wonderful hike on Saturday, but this was going to be another long-haul day, especially since we’d never been that far South before.  It was also Mother’s Day!  Seems like we’re always traveling on Mother’s Day, which is a credit to our Mothers’ heritage.

That morning the hotel breakfast was waitressed (rather than buffet-style), and a young one spilled a tray of breakfast before we got seated.  Not a good way to start a day for her.  Hope she took it in stride, especially if she’s a mother, and we gave her a nice tip later.

Time to hit the road, but we actually had more of New River Gorge NP to see first.  We cruised through the town of Beckley and then way, way down route 3 in WV towards Hinton.  This was the real Southern entrance of the Park and where the New River (egged on by the Bluestone River) gets wild.  We turned North on the River Road (route 26) in Hinton and followed it for 20 miles or so along the riverside, downstream to the falls.

The river road on the West bank, and apparently the river road on the East bank, was a trip.  You might call it a hippie enclave, but I’m sure a number of the itinerant residents would object to being called hippies.  This was a riverside city made out of old RVs, trailers, ingenious shelters, and ancient porta-potties.  I’m sure all the stuff gets washed away and/or shifted every few years by the river.  But the people there seemed to be saying that they could take that, they just wanted to hang out on the river’s edge and fish when they needed to.  There would be bad years, but hopefully they’d be outnumbered by good years.

We got to the end of route 26, back in the territory administered by the National Park, and parked in their quarter-full lot for a wonderful, mellow hike.  This was the Sandstone Falls area itself (as opposed to the Sandstone Falls Overlook), and they have a boardwalk out to the falls, and then a nature trail on the island formed by the falls, which is a mile loop.

In an outrageous Spring, this place would have been overwhelmed as much as the trailer village we’d seen upstream, and it has often been overwhelmed by the river from the piles of debris that we saw around the island.  But at that time it was just right, and though we saw some spectacular water running through the island, most flowed around it, forming a beautiful falls and even more spectacular rapids.  The wider part of that juncture of the New River had formed the long, stately falls, across a few hundred yards.  But then we walked further out the boardwalk and the rest of the river was a wild cascade.  We had seen this part from the overlook the day before yesterday, and now we were right there with it, seeing the tumult and feeling the steam.

Great walk on the island trail after that, meeting only one other couple.  It was a yellow, sunny morning again after the rains of the last few days, and the plants and small wildflowers were reveling in the river mud.  Woodpeckers rattled and frogs honked.

Back to the car and it was still too early for lunch (and the parking lot was getting crowded), so we pressed on to the South, following route 20 back to Interstate 77, and back into Virginia.  As I say, my itch to see exotic places (the more vernacular the better) was scratched pretty good on that trip.  This late morning drive down through Southernmost WV and into VA was exactly what I wanted.

There were tunnels on the Interstate from WV into VA, and then a long, swoopy drive at 75 MPH (no one was going faster, so we didn’t) from the mountains into the valley.  We stopped at a rest area and had an excellent PB&J lunch in one of their pavilions, though some beggars bothered us (crows and chipmunks that is).

Switched to Interstate 81 in Wytheville (as before, lots of trucks but in general a genteel drive) and motored West in a seam of the mountains, through Bristol VA into Tennessee.  81 joined Interstate 40 and soon after that we finally exited on 66/441 through Sevierville (pronounced “SeVERE-ville”) to Pigeon Forge and then to Gatlinburg TN, right on the edge of the National Park.  This was as far West as we got that trip.  But hold on cowboy!

You would not believe the stretch of tourist traps between the Interstate and the National Park, or maybe you’ve seen or heard of it.  I’ll tell you, we were unprepared for it, expecting more rural landscape.  I should have been tipped off when I made hotel reservations and there were a lot of them with high prices.  I apologize to people who want entertainment strips like that, but this was way over the top for me and Sarah, I don’t even know how to describe it.  There were gigantic neon signs and billboards, and around every curve on the three-lane highway was another jaw-dropping spectacle.  Two that got me were the Hatfield and McCoy dinner theater, an all-you-can-eat attraction (to see hillbillys get even further denigrated?), and the upside-down palace, which really was an upside-down palace.

Anyway, the strip finally ended and we were traveling through a greenspace, but then we got to Gatlinburg TN and it was even worse!  Again, many people seemed to be loving the artificially propped-up fairyland that Gatlinburg was (they had a Bubba Gump shrimp house and an “Alpine” chairlift ride), and had chosen it as a vacation destination.  I had the feeling that I was in the wrong space and/or time, but when we finally arrived at our hotel the desk clerk assured me that I was in the right place and that we had a reservation.  Sarah and I counted ourselves lucky that the hotel we’d made reservations at was hanging on the outskirts of town, though they were building yet another hotel behind it, and to have our fifth-floor room be blessed with a mountain view.  They also had a patio overlooking “the Creek” that a lot of the hotels around there gushed about, but it was nothing really special.

We’d checked out local dinner options (we could have gone to Bubba Gump’s!), and there was a Smoky Mountains Brewery downtown.  Knowing we might be sorry but sometimes you have to go for it, we hiked over to the brewhouse and had a fine meal, though it was incredibly bright and noisy in there.  I got their guest IPA and then their flagship IPA, which was very impressive.  Sarah got a cocktail special and we both had salads.  Nice to be there but not for long, and I have to give our waiter four stars, though there was a bit of language difficulty.

Waded back through the writhing downtown and back to our fifth-floor room at the Hampton Inn – Historic Nature Trail (there are three Hampton Inns in town so don’t be fooled!).  A little reading and then soon to bed.  It had been a long road day and we forgot to get the mileage, but it had been quite a journey from Beckley.

13 States - The Gorge In the Rain

Saturday, May 13

The next morning our streak of great weather ran out, it was raining off and on outside, but you could tell (and the weather forecast backed us up) that the trend was towards more and more rain and we’d better get used to it.  So we did.

The Holiday Inn apparently sometimes did breakfast buffets and sometimes had waitressed breakfasts, probably depending on how many staff they had that morning.  That morning was a buffet and we fueled up on bacon and eggs for a good hike.  Sarah had a side of biscuits and gravy, but I declined.  At one restaurant she was asked if she wanted white or brown gravy on her mashed potatoes.  What a question!

We looked at weather forecasts and maps for a little bit.  We could make a major decision to skip the New River and instead head further South right away, but the forecast to the South was just the same, and we had been told we *had* to see “The Bridge.”  And so we did, who cares about rain?

It was a good-sized and rainy drive from Beckley up to the Canyon Rim VC, but fine for an early morning.  Just before the VC we passed over the bridge, which we couldn’t see well at that point … we couldn’t see anything well with the mist and the rain!  But we parked at the small, crowded VC, and saw their excellent short video about the history of the area.  We got some maps and some info, then were some of the only people to head out for their overlook, which was a winding set of stairways that took us down and down on the side of the gorge, to where we had a great view of the bridge and the river … supposedly.

The rain continued to spit, drizzle, mist, and shower on and off, and we brought umbrellas out onto the series of platforms descending from the trail by the VC.  But we put the umbrellas away and just glorified in the terrarium we were in the middle of.  The platforms and stairways hugged the steep bank, with beeches and maples and who knows what growing out of it.  Could have been some bears in there.  We went down and down the stairs among scents of the wet dirt and the new trees into the gorge where the mists danced around like sprites.  Up above us was the new bridge, with a steady traffic drone, but it was almost like another sprite, showing views of its steel architecture when the mist blew by, and the traffic sound receded as we went lower and lower.  And down way below us still was the river, suddenly visible when the curtains of mist parted.  We knew it was treacherous and had rapids and rocks, and we could hear it faintly, gurgling down below.

Back up the stairs and it wasn’t as bad a climb as the signs had warned.  Glad we were there when there wasn’t a long line of people going down and struggling back up.  It was still mid-morning when we got back to the car, and we drove the few miles up and down narrow and treacherous roads to the trailhead we really had our eyes on, the Endless Wall Trail in the Canyon Rim section of the Park.  And we’d chosen wisely.

We were a little surprised that the parking lot at the trailhead was half full, we had expected it to be deserted.  But it was Saturday and, though raining, this was the place to be.  We put on slickers, mine not waterproof, but it was already hot and humid and I didn’t want to over-gear for this trail.  We had lots of water and granola bars with us and were ready for a long hike, and it was glorious, super muddy and wet!

On that trail you start off through magical stands of big trees, with light shining through them onto the forest floor.  After a mile or so we were out on the canyon rim, traversing it to the South, and every once in a while there was a side trail out to the rim itself … don’t take one step too far!  There were extraordinary stands of beautiful, purple and red rhododendrons, and flowering shrubs of yellow and orange.  Beech and oak and who knows trees abounded and every once in a while we heard the sound of the river railroad far below, or got bombarded by raindrops.

The clay was astounding too, sandy and bright yellow in some places and then loamy and dark in others.  In some low places on the trail, different colors of clay swirled together.  We were walking on the green lava rocks we’d seen in Virginia, but this was upheaval up on the rim and at the bottom of the gorge old, old geology was exposed.  We passed and were passed by a few groups, all younger than us except one grandma-daughter-kids group where the grandma was our age and was enjoying the trail as much as we were.

Besides the scenic overlooks, where we could see mist, trees, cliffs, and sometimes the river below, there were rock-climbing gaps.  The Endless Wall part of the Park is a rock-climbing mecca, though we saw no climbers that day.  We checked out a few  of the rock-climbing sites though, and there were ladders and anchors for ropes that led to some pretty spectacular drops.

At one overlook the mist was clearing and we could see down to the tracks below, and to an endless freight train, lumbering up the New River.  Several young people joined us at the overlook and took pictures, one doing a yoga pose right on the edge of the rock.  Even her boyfriend had to not look, it was not a place to stumble!  We eventually reached the point where the trail turns back East to the next parking lot, where we had a granola bar, talked geology with some other visitors, and then turned around.

Rain and humidity and mud and scary vistas with mists enshrouding them and spectacular flowering bushes and the New River train tootling down below and countless severe drop-offs into the chasm.  This was a trail that we loved, and we were so glad to be there.  We got back to the parking lot after a long trek and it was *packed*.  There were people spinning their wheels in the mud, competing for the few vacant spots.  I’d been visualizing relaxing on the tailgate with a nice yogurt from the cooler when we got back to the trailhead, but instead we just got out of there immediately so someone else could take our space, and we headed back for the VC.

Made it back there and the sheltered picnic pavilion only had one other group in it, that soon departed.  We spread out our stuff on a picnic table and had an excellent PB&J lunch, perhaps getting a little too cool in the suddenly active breeze after our long and humid hike.  We took turns going to the bathrooms, and my Achilles tendons were suddenly all locked up.  Though not really long or featuring much elevation change, that had been a strenuous hike.

But the best part of that New River Gorge section was still to come, if we believed the people who had gushed about it, the Fayette Station Road Driving Tour.  The road winds down the East side of the gorge, then under the new bridge, then over the old bridge, and then back up the West side.  The Fayette Road was a critical place for early trade, and all commerce was routinely slowed to a standstill by crawling down the bank, over the rickety bridge, and then back up.  This is one reason why the new bridge is a marvel, the world's longest single-span arch bridge when it was completed in 1977 (now the 5th longest), reducing traffic time for crossing the gorge to less than a minute.  We’d crossed that in the morning, but now we were going to go the old way.

From the VC we wound downhill and downhill, under the new bridge and past lush viewpoints and sudden drop-offs.  We were in a group with several other cars, including a van with a burnt-out engine that produced lots of smoke.  Down over the old bridge (which doesn’t seem very trustworthy) in an amazingly close and relatively still stretch of the river, and then downstream for a bit where we stopped to clamber around the shore at the bottom of the gorge, near where the river turns fierce again.  Lots of others clambered there too, it was a pretty spectacular place with the sun finally coming out and the mist clearing above us.  A woman claimed to have seen an anhinga.  Some tubers ran the rapids and then climbed back up the few hundred yards to do it again.  Then I saw a lone pickup rolling into the lot, and the driver gazing up at the sky.  He crashed into a boulder and shattered his right headlight.  Talk about embarrassed!  He screwed out of there immediately, repeating a mantra of “Oh shit,” louder and louder.

Back in the car and we started up the gorge, realizing that the smoky van was not too far ahead of us.  We stopped again when the trail switched back to the right at the head of the Kaymoor Trail, which leads to an old coal mine.  Well, I’m going to remember this place for a long time.  It sure wasn’t deserted, and we didn’t go far up the Trail, but it was one of the most vertiginous, lush, earthy places I’ve ever seen.  We didn’t have much time to spend there but headed out the Trail and crossed one bridge over a raging stream, and then climbed up a steep slope to another waterfall that just filled me with joy.  It came down on us, thirty feet or so from the cliff above, went under the path across the cliff that we were standing on, and then cascaded another 50 feet or so into the stream below.  Can’t find a name for this falls in my maps, but I could have stayed and watched it forever, except it was spraying on me and finally drove us away, back down the Trail to the car, parked on a steep slope.

We drove up the last of that steep slope back to route 19, and then headed back to Beckley as the sun struggled to brighten up the late afternoon.  We loved New River Gorge, but it was time to return to the hotel, take off our wet and muddy clothes, and relax a bit.  I took a nap after we got back, and then joined Sarah in the lounge, where she’d been taking advantage of happy hour G&Ts.  I joined in with a few of the pedestrian porters, and we had a game of Parks before going back to their restaurant for dinner.

Soon to bed again after that, having traveled 66.1 miles that day by car, and endlessly more marvelous miles by foot.  Still raining hard as we fell asleep.