The Great Smokies

In Greenville SC, we met up with old friend Ralph and his wife Judy, who generously invited us to stay at their beautiful new home. Thanks very much Ralph and Judy, and we hope we get to repay the compliment in the future! Ralph showed us around the delightful and recently restored historic downtown area of Greenville. The Reedy River flows through town, and the rejuvenation of this district has rendered the area beautiful and charming.

On this drive + walk, we discovered that the Poinsettia is a flower of Mexican origin but introduced to the US by a Greenville resident Joel Poinsett who became the first US Ambassador to Mexico. We also saw the beautiful campus of Furman University, within walking distance of Ralph and Judy's home.

Ralph and Judy advised us on a scenic route into the Great Smoky Mountains (GSM) which was to be our next destination. We followed this route, and found it to be (as warned) circuitous and extremely twisty, but as it climbed into the hills, it passed through delightful countryside and towns, such as Cashiers and Highlands. This route looks as if it is very popular in summer, but it was reasonably quiet for our drive. At the latter town, we found a great place for cappucino. It seems the arty and touristy towns are reliable sources of espresso coffee outlets!

We eventually arrived at Cherokee at the southern gateway to the GSM National Park, and decided that there wasn't enough time to cross the mountain at leisure, so we stayed the night. Cherokee is a big touristy town, full of "trading post" type souvenir shops, located inside the Cherokee Indian Reservation. The town is getting quite a lot of work during this off-season. The photo shows one of many painted bears which decorate the streets of Cherokee - they are quite cute!

Indian reservations in the US are allowed casinos to provide a solid source of financial support to the native populations. This is no doubt one way of compensating the Indians for atrocities performed in times past. In the Cherokee's case, the entire nation was marched to Oklahoma by the US Government in the 1830's, the famous "Trail of Tears", where few survived.

Hopefully the Cherokee Casino (and all others for that matter) is distributing wealth where it is most needed, but we found it quite dispiriting, a dark and very smoky place populated by sad looking and addicted gamblers. We remember someone saying that gambling is a tax on stupidity. Casinos are certainly habituated by people with poor mathematical skills, otherwise they would know that they are going to lose! The fact that gamblers seem to smoke heavily is perhaps another indicator of their intelligence.

We spent a fine but mostly overcast day in the GSM National Park. The drifting mists which give rise to the "smoky" were well and truly in evidence, and the park was amazingly beautiful. After an overnight downpour, the rivers were flowing apace [photo at a bridge over the Oconaluftee River], and the waterfalls were plentiful and magnificent. The altitude of the park is not so high (Newfound Gap is at 5046ft), so it's partly above and below the snowline, leading to the slushy and slippery conditions that also grace the Australian Snowy Mountains. We only attempted about a mile of the famed Appalachian Trial, and found the walking conditions quite challenging [photo].

At the vistors' centres, we learnt a lot about the history, flora and fauna of this Park. The GSM National Park is effectively the only wilderness area on the eastern side of the USA, and it only came about through the cooperation (sometimes grudging) and contributions of many landholders, residents and schoolchildren, and commercial stakeholders, including logging companies who had already logged 80% of the area, and the governments of Tennessee and North Carolina. A most important donation came from the Rockefeller family. The biodiversity of the park is stunning (a movie at the visitor's centre explains why) and precious, and accordingly we found it quite unnerving to see a lot of gun shops in the town of Gatlinburg on the north side of the park. These shops are here for a reason!

While considering where to stay after our Park visit, we looked for Dollywood at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It's missing! We found the car park, but not the theme park (which is shut for the Winter anyway), and not the "emporium" which is supposed to be open.