Vacation 2012
10 July - 9 August
a tour of places in eastern USA
the R-pod travel trailer
Page 3
Great Smokey Mountain National Park
This park is heavily wooded, and some of the roads are narrow.
Where we entered on the west side the road was exceedingly winding.
Driving it was a challenge, but also fun.
A primitive banjo on exhibit in the park visitors center.
One of the main differences between these mountains and the Rockies out west is that
These mountains are more rounded... and are covered with greenery.
Lots of streams here, but not fed by melting glaciers or snow at least during the summer.
Green covered mountains, misty at a distance, looking West.
After stopping at the visitor's center and discovering that we entered the park
farther southwest than we intended (giving us that spectacular winding drive)
we headed across the park and up the road to Clingman Dome, the highest point in the
park. This is at the end of a winding road, after which there is a well paved trail goint to the summit.
The trail up Clingman's Dome
We put on rain jackets. This was the first and only time it was cold on this vacation.
The summit of Clingman's Dome is 330 ft. above the parking lot.
This does not sound like much... traveling horizontally, but vertical distance is another matter
and, here one is over a mile up from sealevel... higher than Denver, Colorado. The air is thinner.
The clouds were rapidly blowing up the mountain.
Then it started drizzling.
Gerard - in the rain - - Mona near the top - in the rain
6,643 ft. above sea level - highest mountain in the Great Smokey Mountains Park
A cold rain was falling. It surprised many who were up at the observation area.
Many of them were under dressed and having a miserable time hustling back to the parking area.
At the same time, we were stubornly walking up the trail, in our rain jackets.
Judging by the moss growing in the shady area near the bottom of the ramp
it must rain and mist often here.
The spiral bridge trail to the top of the observation tower.
views from the top
Joseph at the bottom of the tower - photographed by us at the top.
He had already been up to the top and back down long before we got to the top.
Gerard and Joseph where the Appalachian Trail crosses the one up to Clingman Dome.
Mona took advantage of some of the benches both on the way up and back down.
It was not raining when we descended to the parking area.
Something is interesting over there...
At the parking lot we changed into dry clothes in the Rpod.
Then drove out of the park to find the KOA Campground in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Even with the GPS it was confusing and we did 3 circuits of the town before we found
the right narrow road to the KOA. We arrived at this huge KOA in darkness.
It was a very lively place, lots of live music etc.
We approached the campsite, at the back of the campground from a difficult direction
and had a difficult time getting parked. It had been raining and the ground was wet.
We discovered that we had left our very convenient water heating pot at the previous KOA... bummer.
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Parking at night, not to be repeated - Cherokee KOA the next morning
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