Loose Laces

 View from Blue Ridge Parkway

We left home yesterday too late in the morning for good shooting light. Someone told Carolyn there were still several abandoned country grocery stores on Highway 321 between Greeneville and Newport, so I was willing to do some scouting if not some shooting. We drove away just past eleven and stopped at a grocery store. While Carolyn was buying picnic supplies--baloney and pimento cheese--I hooked up the Tom-Tom GPS and set it for Newport via scenic route and it took us directly to 321 in Greeneville. I drove and drove and we were both looking for the old stores but didn't find a one until we were in Cosby which is not far from Newport. I turned around and decided to give it a try with the Pentax. I found a good parking place across the highway in the lot of a Dollar General Store. That was good fortune because I could not walk more than five paces from the car; I was hurting. I made three or four pics of the old store with its rusty Coca-Cola signs and as I started to get back in the car, the volunteer fire department on the hill behind the building came to life. I waited until the red fire truck started to pull onto the highway and got a pic of it along with the store. Nothing special but it was pretty well the highlight of the day. I drove on into Newport and they were having a Veterans Celebration Day at the small town courthouse. In that town, the traffic lights are hanging on one side of the street and it happened to be the side on which I wasn't. I merrily drove through one red-light and almost another before my brain candle lit and told me to be careful. After that bravado, I was ready to give Gatlinburg a try; no one with any sense goes to that tourist trap but everyone I know does and that included me on that day. Of course the traffic was bumper to bumper and the sidewalks and stores were packed with the ignorant and curious. Having gotten through town (I hadn't been there since 1970), we decided we were hungry; we had eaten nothing to so far. I said let's drive over the Smokies into Cherokee, North Carolina, so away we went. We found no picnic spots with tables and just as we got to the state line, I noticed I had forgotten to put gasoline in the tank of the Escape, and we were still hungry. I found a place well off the road to park, and Carolyn made sandwiches which we wolfed down fairly quickly. I spotted a crow walking along a sidewalk and got a pic of him. Why the crow was walking uphill on a sidewalk near the top of one of the highest mountains in the Eastern United States, I will never know; crows are strange people. I figured if bad became worse and we ran out of gas, I could use the hand brake and coast into Cherokee. Carolyn decided she needed to pee, so off the side of a bank she went and came back fussing; she peed on her pants waist. I don't even try to figure out stuff like that; men have their own problems. I had already used my can on the way up the Tennessee side, so I was good to go. We made it to the bottom of the mountain and saw an elk on the way down; my first ever. We didn't run out of gas but did fill up in town. We took off toward Asheville, NC and from there we would soon be home. We decided to go back part way on the Blue Ridge Parkway which is a scenic road skirting the tops of some old and tall mountains. At first scenic view pull-off, I tried to get some pics as my bride sliced a cantaloupe for our belated desert. We were immediately attacked by every gnat and tiny black fly this side of Myrtle Beach. All but the first shot I made at the spot had dark blurry spots all over it when I loaded them on the pc. Damn bugs! On the other side of the road I saw hundreds of trilliums just waiting to be shot, but the bugs won; we retreated to the car and left. By this time I was worn out and Carolyn wasn't in much better shape. At the next overlook we must have elevated ourselves above bugdom and I got a couple of unsatisfactory shots. Carolyn volunteered to drive for awhile, and I managed to get her to take a wrong turnoff in Asheville; she was fit to be tied. I blamed the GPS but she didn't buy it. Just before 7:00pm, she drove us into the driveway at home. We had been riding nearly constantly for eight hours. She went directly to bed, but I stayed up for awhile picking bugs out of my body crevices, finally coming to the conclusion I would have to shower to rid myself of the varmints. After that excursion, Carolyn has decided not to try to drive the 21 hour trip to Texas for our grandson's Air Force graduation. She has a short memory and will probably want to do so anyway.
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This is why they call them the Smoky Mountains

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