April 28 - Getting Ready

The drive around the Western edge of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park was marvelous -- easy, beautiful mountain driving along a 'parkway' (not the fabled Blue Ridge Parkway) that followed a ridge the whole way.  Below is a shot taken from one of the view turnouts provided.  The valley floor might be Cades Cove, or simply another  lovely Appalachian valley.

As we traveled counter-clockwise around the Smokies, we crossed back into North Carolina again.  Our destination that day was Fontana Lake, which sits at the Southwestern corner of the Smokies.

We arrived at our chosen campground -- the only one for miles -- and were immediately confused.  The Trailer Life campground guide mentioned 'recreation facilities' that included swimming pools and such, and none such were in view.  Rather, the campground sat on some TVA property immediately below the Fontana Dam -- not terribly comforting -- with no offices, registration buildings or in fact anything except some exposed and run-down campsites, one bath house and a pay phone.  We drove out of the campsite and up the road, and found the dismal Fontana Village General Store, which apparently had as its mission to never stock any merchandise that one would actually like to purchase.  The sour woman running the register vaguely directed us further up the road, and we finally found the Fontana Lodge Registration building.  This was where we were to pay for our campsite, which we did.  We also inquired where we might park our rig while we were out backpacking, and were so directed.  Things were looking better.  Since we had already driven through the campground, we knew which site we wanted, which we were given.  Below, Jordan poses at site #8, set back well into the woods in a nice grove of Tulip Trees (also known as Poplar).

It was grooming time that day.  The Thomas Family Beauty Parlor briefly had its doors open.  Below, Doug waits for his beauty technician to finish her coffee.

That night we went in to "town" to see what there was.  We found the pool table and the pool.  Just what Jordan wanted.  We had played a couple of games of pool when Jeremy arrived on the scene.  Jeremy was a local boy about 13 years old, with a strong country accent and his own pool cue.  He was short for his age and had a spinal deformity for which he was wearing some kind of brace.  We invited him to play pool with us, having Doug be his partner since Jeremy said he was pretty good. 

We played one more game of pool, (which Jeremy won) and then we went on to swim.  Jeremy didn't swim with us, but stayed with us at the pool until we left.  He was a sweet kid.  He was a braggart about many things like his two expensive pool cues, his pool playing ability and how many girls' phone numbers he collected the summer before.  He also told us he won a trip from Make a Wish Foundation to do to Disney World and he goes back to visit his counselor there every summer.  He was such a character and so charming. 

Jeremy was waiting for his mom to get off work at the restaurant in town.  He seemed reluctant to see us go and his good-byes were sweet.  "You'uns have a good trip. You'uns be careful out thar."