DOPI Nick tries to sleep

DOPI Nick goes to bed

Smokemount campground at Smoky Mountains National Park is lovely. Lots of trees, babbling brook. No electricity or water at the sites. Believe it or not, it did not occur to me until Savannah that I could bring an extension cord and a power strip to camp and be electrified.  We could have brought a blender! Not at SMNP, though.

Happiness is setting up and breaking camp in dry weather. Even though I’ve done it plenty of times both ways with Scouts, breaking camp in the rain never loses its lack of appeal. We set up in dry sunshine at Smokemont. No power meant 600 strokes on the pump to get the bed inflated.

We had a campfire. We had loaded up with duraflame logs at Walmart. I was done with trying to get damp wood to burn using those wimpy little fire starters and fanning with the dustpan. Naturally, since we were prepared, it didn’t rain. I really like Walmart. Here’s my song:

            We don’t need no Super Kmart

            We don’t need no CVS

            Our Target ads are in the trashcan

            We’re shopping where the price is best

            Hey! DOPI! We shop where the price is best!

            All in all, its just another trip to the Wal.

We read snippets of Marsha’s great-grandmother’s Bible, and consigned pages to the fire. I’d forgotten that David tried to get Uriah to sleep with his wife to cover up the consequence of his dalliance. Uriah refused, saying if his buddies had to go without, he would too.  That’s when David sent him to the front and told his commander to ditch him. Ultimately, Uriah died because he refused to sleep with his wife when he was on leave.  Weird. David’s story is a reminder that a man should never discount his weaknesses as a source of trouble.

Speaking of sleeping with the wife, I learned some things on this outing. First is that when you are used to sleeping under a sheet with the house “cooled down” to 78, temps at 55 seem pretty darn cold. The mattress sagged. Marsha and I ended up in a valley in the middle, elbowing each other.  Further, I discovered that blankets on top do not help with cold seeping through to one’s back through the mattress.

So, in the middle of the night, we piled out of bed, and I gave the mattress another 60 pump strokes. Then I took one of the poly blankets and put in on the mattress.  Then the other blankets. Then we piled back in, shivering. Marsha soon discovered that I had used the big poly blanket for the bottom layer. The small one was not big enough to reach our feet. Now my back was warm, but my feet were cold. Marsha, as always a step ahead, had remembered her Thorlos, and her feet were warm.

Using the logic that if I try to ignore the problem, maybe it will go away, I lay awake for half hour with my feet staying quite cool. Finally I piled out again and got my Thorlos out of the car. Eventually, I actually got some sleep. Last night, we actually had our act together and got a decent night’s sleep.  How we appreciate the little things! Last night’s fire, we burned dialog books. We have a whole big container of them. These were from the conference at DeKalb where we went with Jeff and Julie. Some fun memories!

In between trying to get to sleep, we actually did drive, hike and kayak in SMNP. We stopped at Laurel Falls on our way up a trail.



We found this sign on the Appalacian trail:
Kayaking at Abrams creek involved a lot of dragging the boats over the shallow rocks to get to the 4 inches of water we need to comfortably (and successfully) paddle. It was pretty, though, and really remote, by our standards.


Overall assessment of SMNP: Rockies, Olympics, Cascades are prettier and offer more adventure. On our way up to Klingman’s Dome, we were passing people who were stopping to rest. I started telling them there was a world-famous tiki bar at the top, as a means of encouragement. This elicited some laughter. Once we got ahead, I started telling people on the way down to comment on how good the beer and fish tacos were. I got a lot of ribbing from people at the lookout who were expecting a tiki bar!

No water = no showers at SMNP.  Now we are a bit gamey. Marsha says motel or truck stop. We’ll probably drive until we get tired tonight and grab a room on our way to Wichita.  Hoh

HHh