7th June to 11th June 2023
We cruised out of our hilly campsite back onto the hilly Blue Ridge Parkway. After about 7 miles we left the Parkway and headed down the ‘hill’. Jeepers. What a hill. It came with numerous hairpins, a 15 mph speed limit for big vehicles, a plethora of warning signs about using low gears, several pull off areas to allow trucks and larger vehicles to stop and let their brakes cool down and at least two escape lanes. We are not a large rig, but we are heavy. Seven tonnes. That’s alot of momentum. Luckily one of the numerous things that we had done on our very expensive trip to the Chevy Service Centre in Nov 21 included new rear brakes, so we were hoping they did their job. We reached the valley floor without incident and carried on. Before long we started climbing again, the I-40 highway winding its way into the Great Smokey Mountains, a subrange of the Appalacians. The hilly theme continued. We crossed the state line into Tenessee and before long arrived at our next stop, a small riverside camp wedged between the I-40 highway and the Big Pigeon River. This area lives and breathes white water rafting and aside from several outfitters, a petrol station and a couple of cafes, there was not much else on offer. Except a moonshine distillery. We were only here for a night, had not planned a rafting trip here and thought we would walk out to find a food before sampling the local distillates. When we arrived it was unfortunately pouring with rain but this did ease enough later to tackle the half mile walk along the grass verge of a suprisingly busy side road back to the ‘village’ centre. We soon discovered that nowhere served food after about 5pm which was when all the rafters were done and gone. So early evening moonshine sampling on an empty stomach it was to be then!
We had a great tasting (drinking) session with the very personable lady manning the fort -whose name neither of us can recall for obvious reasons- and ended up buying a jar of Jalepeno moonshine which makes a very cheeky Bloody Mary variation. We rolled home and cooked pasta…I think!
This section of Tennessee is very narrow and the next day’s drive took us quickly into Kentucky, another new state on our travels. Today we had a lunch destination, the original KFC retstaurant and museum. We don’t often buy lunch when we are out on the road, usually making a picnic if needed, but this was an opportunity to worship at the temple of ‘fingerlickin’ fried chicken’y goodness’. We were powerless pilgrims and made a 20 mile detour to this fairly unprepossessing establishment. The museum exhibits line the walls of the restaurant with a few mock-ups of the original kitchen and several statues of the big man himself. Much of the history of the place was a summary of Colonel Sanders’ life and entrepreneurship. The man was a hardworking genius and latterly a philanthropist. And made very good chicken. The fries are also spectacular. We resisted the urge to get a family sized bucket, ate our modest lunch and headed to camp.
“Me Too”, said the Colonel.
We were staying in a small park co-located with a watersports outfitters in the Daniel Boon National Forest (I love how many of these places are named after people), and was called the Sheltowee Trace Adventure Resort. The main reason people come here is to see the nearby (6 miles away) Cumberland River and its falls, the self proclained Niagra Falls of the South. After setting camp we headed to the office to see what river trip we could do during our stay here. The only trip that had transport directly from the camp was an all day rafting trip, the most expensive option. This was more than we had planned to spend, but we couldn’t be bothered to off-load TinCan from Big Dave, so booked onto it for the next day. Once back at Tin Can our solitude and peace and quiet was ended by the arrival of a group of local Kentuckians away for the weekend from their home town 90 minutes away. Three large camping trailers containing three couples, Levi & Mary, Curtis & Tiffany and ‘Homer’ (not his real name) and Kelly. All lifelong friends, a bit younger than us, with an assortment of offspring (Aged between 19 and 10) and some of their friends. They occupied the spaces either side of us and set up a bit communal party area with a shade gazebo nearby. It was a situation that might have turned out badly but we got chatting and thus commenced our assimilation into their weekend of fun.
They were one of the most genuine and friendly group of people we have met on our travels. Their easy, relaxed and deep-rooted relationships with each other enveloped us too and for 3 days and we were part of the family. There were many hours spent sitting and chatting, mostly with a drink in hand, and a significant number of those around a raging camp fire. There was food. Almost none of it ours. Freely shared. There were marshmallows toasted. There was singing, mostly by Mary using a piece of ‘2 by 1’ as a fake microphone. There were some hangovers. There was a hiking trip to a waterfall that involved chucking some of the kids into the back of a pick up so that there was room for us too. There was a restock shopping trip to the liquor store as the beer supplies had taken a beating. There was some zipline spectating as all the kids, and Mary and Curtis, dared to hurl themselves off a tall platform at the on-site zipwire. There was reciprocal male grooming when, after many drinks, Levi and Homer gave each other buzz cuts. It’s tradition apparently. There was also attempted ‘gigging’ by Kelly. This is the act of catching frogs in the dark by stunning them with a bright torch and them stabbing them with a long sharpen stick, or ‘gig’. One then cooks and eats the legs. She was unsuccessful for several reasons: It was late and much booze had been consumed, rendering her less ‘stealthy’ than necessary. Her ‘gig’ was a short marshmellow toasting fork. Her ‘bright torch’ was an iphone. Frogs 1, Kelly 0.
In amongst all this fun we did our rafting trip, co-incidentally with Levi and Mary and their 2 kids, Blain and Hallie. Despite the heat of the days it was a cold morning and we met at the office reception at the ungodly hour of 8.30am. There was the usual safety briefings and kitting out and we were bundled onto an old yellow school bus which took us to the start of the trip. Our group had five rafts and we had a 40 year old guide called Amy on our boat.
(Side bar: Amy showed us the scar of a gunshot wound on her left thigh. This was a through-and-through injury that had been self inflicted. She said that she had started sleeping with her loaded 9mm handgun in the bed with her for security as her ex had been threatening her. She accidentally discharged it somehow -in a dream???-and woke when she heard the shot. The bullet missed all major blood vessels and nerves, thus she lives and can still walk. Only in America…..)
The trip started with a paddle up to the Cumberland Falls and then headed down river from there. The river was quite low and this was not the high octane, gnarly rapids navigating experience that it might have been, but it was amazing. The river was beautiful and mostly clear and calm, the rapids were fun rather than scary and there were frequent stops to jump off rocks and swim. As the river flow was low it was safe enough to navigate some of the rapids out of the boat and at the end of the trip, once we had descended to lake-level, were met we by a larger pleasure cruise boat to take us the rest of way to the finish point. Once on the boat we were served a ‘build it yourself’ sandwich lunch which was very much needed by then and at the finish the same bus took us home again. Well worth the wonga!
On Sunday morning our new friends all packed up and headed off. We were sad to see them go but not sure we could have managed a fourth consecutive evening of merriment. We said our goodbyes and then were were pretty much by ourselves in the park again. The weather was turning and a storm was forecast. Late afternoon we had a message from Levi: Keep our eyes on the weather forcast. There had been alerts. The storm that was headed our way had ‘potential tornadic activity’ within it. It was about 30 minutes away. We were immediately online and checking ourselves. He was right. I hustled over to the office to check where the storm shelter was. They hadn’t seen the alerts but agreed that it could develop. They pointed out the shelter, the stone built lower floor of one of the larger cabins, and unlocked it. We then packed a small ‘go bag’ with passports and electronica and I quickly door-knocked the three other RVs in the park to make sure they had seen the alerts and had clocked the storm shelter. None had. It was a slightly tense half hour but happily the tornado alert was removed before the storm got to us. No twisters, just a crazy amount of rain and thunder and a great lightning show. I’ll take a storm in a teacup any day over the alternative, Dorothy.
