The Not-So-Great Smoky Mountains

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most popular national park in America, annually being visited by about twice as many people as Yellowstone. The most popular time to visit the Park is in the fall when the leaves are changing colors and so, a couple of months ago, we started making plans to visit the Smoky Mountains along with Jamie and David who are… well, it's complicated. Let's just say she is the mother of Christopher's cousins and leave it at that. Jamie and David were planning to fly in from California for their first vacation in six years. We were all set for some major-league sightseeing and then, two days before they arrived, the United States government decided to take a couple of weeks off and closed all the national parks.

We had driven down from Knoxville, staying in a campground called Smokey Bear RV Park about eight miles east of Gatlinburg. It is a pleasant enough campground, we had no complaints. That first evening we went into town to see what was going on. Gatlinburg is a strange place, kind of a tourist town on steroids. Driving through town reminded me of Waikiki. The sidewalks were packed full of tourists and the cars trickled down the main drag at about 2 mph, significantly slower than the pedestrians on the sidewalks. Instead of tourist shops filled with plastic flower leis and shell necklaces there were tourist shops filled with Appalachian pseudo-crafts, probably mass-produced in Taiwan. And I asked myself the same question I was constantly asking myself when we lived on Oahu.  Who actually buys any of this junk?  There were also dozens of what I guess passes in Eastern Tennessee for tourist attractions like "Ripley's Believe It or Not" museums, mirror mazes, dark rides, spinning machines designed to make you throw up and miniature golf… lots and lots of miniature golf.

We did not go to any of these. Even the ones that might have been fun, I would've been embarrassed to be seen walking into. What we did go to was the Smoky Mountain Brewery restaurant where they make some quite excellent beers and burgers. And they validate your parking, which is important since a parking spot in Gatlinburg runs about 10 bucks per half day.

David, Jamie and the "fun vehicle"

Jamie and David flew into Knoxville that evening and took a shuttle down to Gatlinburg. What with one stopover and the three-hour time difference, they did not get in until late, 12 or 13 hours after their departure time.. They stayed in a very nice hotel up in the hills behind town and finally had dinner there at about 9 PM and we drove over and joined them for dessert. Their hotel room was probably about a mile from downtown Gatlinburg as the crow flies. We, unfortunately, are not crows so we had to take the 10 mile twisty, winding road to get there. We sat under a tarp covering on the hotel balcony eating cream Brulé as a rainstorm rolled through. It was actually rather nice.

The next day we got together to go see what we could see of the Smoky Mountains. We had mis-timed our visit by a week or two. The

Hwy 441

leaves were just starting to turn but most of the mountain sides were still pretty green. Never having spent much time in this part of the country, I expected fall to be well underway by early October but it appears that late October/early November would have been better. Although the national Park was officially closed, they couldn't very well close the main highway over the mountains, so we could at least drive through. Jamie and David had decided to rent a "fun vehicle", a jeep with a removable roof. This was high enough off the ground that I needed mountaineering equipment to climb into the backseat. That's fun, I suppose. Temperatures were in the low to mid 50s but with the top-down, rolling along at 30-40 mph the wind chill factor brought the perceived temperature down to a pleasant -10°.

We drove through the Park admiring the scenery. Of course, all of the campgrounds and picnic areas were blocked off but prior to leaving the area, the Rangers had also gone to the trouble to block off about half of the highway pullouts, leaving relatively little space to stop and look around. We did find a half-dozen places we could pull over and get out of the Jeep (and then struggle back into it). It was a nice drive overall and if you frame your pictures just right you can almost make it look like autumn. When you exit the park on the south side you find yourself in the Cherokee Indian Reservation. We were hoping to get a late lunch and found ourselves with a choice of half a dozen fairly terrible looking places to eat. We got some advice from one of the locals on which was the least terrible of the lot. I had an Indian taco which was okay. I think David was significantly less than impressed with his hamburger. We sat on the front patio where the dogs could join us and bark at the other diners. We then drove back over the same road to return to Gatlinburg. That was our tremendous visit to the most popular national park in America.

Judiciously framed fall foliage

One of the things I never got an explanation for is what the deal is with Gatlinburg and pancakes. There are pancake restaurants everywhere. I did not keep an exact tally but there were at least eight and possibly as many as 12 pancake places. The Flapjack Emporium, the Little Pancake House, the Big Pancake House, The Log Cabin Pancake House, the list goes on and on. Vicki and I actually got up and went to one of these establishments for breakfast the next morning. Neither of us had pancakes. Vicki had crepes with fried apples. I had a waffle which, I guess, is kind of a pancake with ridges. As breakfasts go, it was okay but nothing special. The syrup seemed to me to be actually watered down. Kind of disappointing. We then drove the 10 miles of switchbacks back up to the hotel only to discover that Jamie and David had decided to spend the day sleeping off their jetlag. I assume they were sleeping. What else would you do in a hotel room on your first vacation in six years?  As we were leaving the parking lot we saw this guy amble through with three of his friends. Unfortunately, his buddies had shuffled off down the hill by the time I ran to the back of the car and got my camera out. This is for you Ruth.

Vicki and I drove out to the nearby neighboring village of Townsend. There was a shop there that manufactures dulcimers on site and Vicki thought I would be interested in seeing it. Yeah, right. Only later did I discover that on learning that the dulcimer is the easiest stringed instrument to learn how to play, she had decided she needed one. Here you can see her having her first dulcimer lesson. We left the shop with a dulcimer, a dulcimer bag, a teach yourself dulcimer book and a dulcimer CD for Vicki. And for me… well, nothing really. I did not even get to see them make a dulcimer since the luthier was out of town doing other business that day. Now Vicki is practicing diligently on a daily basis so she will be ready to lead the group singing of Christmas carols when we get back to California in December. Be afraid... be very afraid.

Knoxville

From Jonesborough we moved on to Knoxville, Tennessee where we stayed at another Escapees campground called the Raccoon Valley RV Park. This was a nice campground and because we are members of Escapees, it was cheap. Some online reviewers have complained about the sites being too close together but we did not find it particularly worse than many other campgrounds we have stayed in.

Escapees parks try to promote some sort of social life for the long-term and/or permanent campers. At this particular park they hold weekly music jam sessions, electric instruments on Wednesdays and acoustic on Thursdays. I hauled my guitar out for the Thursday night session which ran for a couple
of hours. They had a fair number of what seemed to be regulars including a pretty good mandolin player, a standup bass, a banjo picker and a dobro guitar. It made for a pretty impressive sounding group. There was also an audience of about 20 non-musicians. Overall, it was a fun evening and I wish every campground had something like this organized.

Our few days in Knoxville were mostly down time.  I did some shopping and ran some errands. But we did take one afternoon and go to the Museum of Appalachia. This is a privately owned Museum
started by a local teacher and historian in the 1960s to try and preserve Appalachian history and culture which is gradually being lost as they finally catch up with the 21st century. The impression we have is that the Appalachian area has in many ways consistently lagged about 50 years behind the more urban areas of the country. Certainly during the depression but even into the 1950s and 60s they were still hand making many common items using whatever materials they had available and many examples are on display. The museum not only collects artifacts but records when each piece was made and by whom and how it came to the museum collection.  It is a celebration of  Appalachian crafts and folk art. There were three floors of displays including thousands of individual objects but I'm just going to show you a few of the items that caught my interest going through.

This small shack was the office of a doctor practicing in Western Virginia prior to World War II. He did not go to medical school but learned his trade by apprenticing with his uncle whose medical credentials are unclear at best. You can see that inside the office space was a little cramped, but at least he had phone service. It appears that he doubled as a pharmacist and possibly a mail carrier. Thankfully, I did not see any signs that he dabbled in surgery.

The most interesting part of the Museum to me was down in the basement where they had a large collection of musical instruments. Most of these were made locally for the personal use of the builder and might be made out of whatever was available. There were a fairly large number of gourd instruments like the banjo we saw played in Kentucky, but there were also a few more unusual items like a mandolin made out of a tobacco box and banjos made out of a hospital bed pan and an old cookie tin. I particularly liked the banjo made out of a canned ham container though I think it is just for show since the frets are not spaced properly.


 
 

This mandolin is particularly interesting. It was made by a man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to 300 years in prison. He clearly had a lot of time on his hands and so he made this instrument entirely out of wooden matchsticks. The dark color on the neck and pick guard was produced by staining the matchsticks with coffee. The sign on the display did not say, but I don't think it is a playable instrument. I think if you actually tightened up the strings, they would snap that neck like, well, a matchstick.



 This horn is from a long horn steer. A prospector from Texas hollowed it out and brought it with him in the 1930s to use for dipping water out of streams for drinking. I liked the look of the carving on the surface. He left it to his daughter when he died and she donated it to the museum.







We always tend to gravitate to the medically related stuff. I particularly liked these wheelchairs. If you look closely you can see that they are made by putting wheels on regular dining room chairs. Wheelchairs and other medical equipment are so grotesquely overpriced that I think they should sell wheel kits so people can do this today.






Like several other places we have been, the museum also had about 25 or 30 old buildings spread out over the property's 60 some odd acres... shacks and log cabins that they have transported onto thegrounds from the backwoods within a 200 mile radius. The museum's grounds mimic a working pioneer Appalachian farm, with gardens growing typical crops and animals such as goats, chickens, turkeys, and peacocks roaming the grounds freely.  Here you can see Vicki sitting on the porch of a tiny shack that was not vacated by its owner until the 1960s. Inside was just big enough for a bed, a chair and a Franklin style stove for heat and cooking. It makes our 37 foot motor home seem downright roomy by comparison. I assume there was an accompanying outhouse but they did not bring it along.



This cabin is labeled as belonging to "The Mark Twain Family". Well of course, there was no Mark Twain family since Mark Twain was a pen name but the cabin apparently did belong to the Clemens family in the early 1800s. Mark Twain never lived here though, by the time he was born the family had moved to Missouri.

I found the Museum pretty fascinating with a fair amount of entertainment value. Vicki was somewhat less impressed, I'm not sure why. Anyway, if you're in the Knoxville area and have some time to kill I would definitely drive out and have a look around. They also have a small dining room in the Museum store that serves homestyle lunches made out of whatever is available from the local farmers markets and were pretty good, however if you want to get lunch make sure you get there early enough. The kitchen closes at two o'clock.

Jonesborough

When we left the Cumberland Gap, we headed southeast into Tennessee, to the small town of Jonesborough. This is the oldest town in the state however the rest of Tennessee has pretty much passed it by, leaving the area mostly rural and peaceful. We camped in Davy Crockett Birthplace

The view out our windshield

State Park, just east of town, with the Nolichucky River flowing past, literally right in front of our windshield. But we were not there to learn about Davy Crockett nor to admire the Nolichucky. My former office manager/receptionist, Kelly, went to Jonesborough after I closed the office down because her son and, more importantly, her granddaughter lives there. She is actually currently staying with her sister in Rhode Island but returned to Jonesborough for her granddaughter's third birthday.

The birthday party was on a Saturday and we were invited. After acquiring a suitable gift (a junior doctor kit), we arrived at the party only slightly late. There were about 6-8 other children there along with various assorted parents,

Joey meets a schnoodle

grandparents, ex-spouses, friends and other relatives. Kelly's son, Christopher, grilled hamburgers and bratwurst and passed out samples of his homemade peach moonshine which we tried, risking God only knows what sort of bodily damage. (It was actually quite tasty). It took a while for the guest of honor, Joey, to finish opening all of her 500 birthday presents but eventually they were all unwrapped and ready to be crammed into her room. Christopher dealt with the mountain of wrapping paper by piling it up in the back of his yard and setting it on fire. You couldn't get away with that in Southern California. In short, a good time was had by all.

The next morning we went to breakfast at IHOP with Kelly's family, then packed Kelly and the schnoodles into our car to tour around the local area. Jonesborough has a fairly well preserved

County courthouse

historic downtown area including a number of colonial period buildings. There is a log cabin built in 1777 and an inn built in 1797 which is actually still in use. The biggest building in town is the Washington County Courthouse which was decorated for autumn/Halloween and as courthouses go was suitably impressive. Jonesborough is also the home of the International Storytelling Center which is an organization dedicated to the preservation of the Appalachian storytelling traditions. They have an annual National Storytelling Festival which was to be held the weekend after we were there. This is unfortunate because we had prior commitments to be elsewhere but fortunate because tickets were $150 a day and it would have severely impacted our budget. They also have resident storytellers who do evening "concerts" intermittently but none were scheduled during the time we were there. A smaller (and cheaper) event like that we would have liked to go to.

Storytelling center

The Chester Inn, circa 1797

After wandering around downtown Jonesborough for a while, we packed everyone back in the car and drove to Greensville, the next town down the highway. It's claim to fame is that it was the hometown of Andrew Johnson, the unfortunate vice president of Abraham Lincoln who took over

Kelly and Vicki walking the dogs

after the assassination. As president, he was in pretty much constant conflict with Congress over legislation to punish the South after the Civil War. Johnson tried to follow Lincoln's plan of reconciliation but with all of the southern Democrats gone the Republican Congress could do pretty much whatever it wanted. He vetoed a number of their laws but to no avail since they had the votes to override him. Finally the Congress got tired of dealing with president Johnson and tried to get rid of him by impeaching him, making him the only president afforded that particular honor. In the end, they came up one vote short of conviction so he got to serve out his remaining term, then he happily went back to Greensville. After he got home, he actually got reelected as a congressman making him also the only president to serve in Congress after his presidency.

Andrew Johnson was, by trade, a tailor and they have built a small museum at the site of his original tailor shop. To preserve the shop, they actually built the Museum building around it. They then moved his family home next door from its original site a few blocks down. I was fairly impressed that a tailor with no legal or military experience could actually rise to the office of president. I don't think it would happen today.

Davey Crockett's birthpace (his grandparents' cabin)

After that we spent the afternoon driving around rural Tennessee and enjoying the countryside. It is really a beautiful area. It is hard to get used to how much water there is in this half of the country. There are streams and rivers everywhere and the fields and yards are lush and green despite the fact that these people have no idea what a sprinkler system is. Finally, we went back to our campground and hunted around until we located the cabin where Davy Crockett was born. It looked remarkably like the other 40 or 50 log cabins we have seen in the last few weeks except the signs around it talked about Davy Crockett instead of Daniel Boone or Joseph Martin or whoever. In case you can't tell, we're getting a little blasé.

Kelly had heard of a German restaurant in Johnson City and we took her there for dinner and had schnizels and kraut. It reminded us of our time in Germany although we didn't think it was as good as our local gasthaus in Schweinfurt. They did have imported German beer and 1 liter steins to serve it in but we are too old and feeble for that kind of activity so we judiciously stuck to pints.  We dropped Kelly off at her son's house and said goodbye. Hopefully we will see her again next year when we return to the East Coast.