DAY NINE Laundry day.

DAY NINE Laundry day.

With no air conditioning, it was hot and muggy in the camper when we woke up. The night before had been a soaker and the day wasn’t shaping up to be much better, although we couldn’t be sure since we had no way to check the weather. We decided the best course of action would be to visit Gatlinburg and get some laundry done.

Even though it was only thirty miles away, it took well over an hour to get to Gatlinburg because of the tight, twisting roads. But all at once we emerged from the forest and were plopped directly into pure tourism, with shops and restaurants packed along the street in brand new buildings with old facades. There were way too many places that had the phrase “old time” in their name with most of them spelling it “old tyme” just for a more authentic (sarcasm) feel. Obviously, and perhaps thankfully, there were no old tyme laundry facilities, and we had to drive to the edge of the town to find our super fun tourist destination.

We ran our clothes sacks to the laundry mat in a downpour and got to work like a well-oiled machine. I stuffed each person’s clothes into a separate washer, Jason poured the soap, and I inserted the proper coinage to get things rolling. We ended up with five small washers and one giant washer swishing away as I went to get lunch at Mcdonalds. Again.

It’s too bad we didn’t contact McDonald's before we left to let them know that we would be visiting locations in multiple states over the course of a few weeks and would be happy to conduct secret shopper reports as we went. Trust me, we ate plenty of peanut butter sandwiches out of the car, but when it was more convenient to eat out, such as while doing laundry, we ate at McDonald's. While many people mock McDonald's for their poor quality, they are actually incredibly friendly with all of my food allergies. Truth be told, I prefer Culvers, but they don’t seem to be a thing in the south.    
As we scarfed our McDonalds in the laundromat, we switched all the clothes over to dryers and then emptied the clean, dry clothes back into our separate laundry bags. It was a record-breaking laundry session!!

We made our way back to the camp, where I insisted on stopping at a visitors center to get some fresh reading material and to ask about trails to hike in the rain. By this time, I had thoroughly scared the crap out of myself with the books I had read on missing hikers and unexplained deaths in the Smokies, so I thought why not keep my level of terror well above normal. After selecting another horrifying book, I talked to the ranger about what we could safely hike in the current weather conditions. We didn’t want anything too long where we could get into potential thunderstorm trouble in the middle and still have to walk miles back out.

It was decided we would hike Clingmans Dome, at the end of which is the highest point in the park. The trail is paved and short at a ½ mile. At the top of the hike is a spiral walkway that leads to a circular observation deck. It is like a spaceship straight out of Tomorrow Land at Disney. Anyway, the hike also allowed Jason to walk on the Appalachian Trail for a few yards. He’s slightly obsessed with hiking the AT, and I fear that our retirement years may be spent schlepping up and down mountains.

Driving up to Clingmans Dome, the road was difficult to see through the soupy air that enveloped the car. In fact, I ended up with vertigo from being disoriented and zinging around curves at what felt like a hundred miles per hour but was in reality more like 17 miles per hour.

So the thing with Clingmans is that it’s straight up for a ½ mile, which doesn’t sound far or hard, but it is when you’re an out of shape adult. I ended up resting every .2 miles. I may have also been hangry. It’s hard to say, but fairly likely given our history of not eating properly. Marcus, of course, ran the entire way up but had to stop to wait for us when he got out of sight because I didn't want a book written on the little boy who got lost in the fog and was never found.

Once at the top, the climb was well worth it. While we couldn’t actually see more than 25 yards or so in the chewable fog, there was a sense of accomplishment and awe. I imagined what it would have looked like had it been a clear day, and in my mind, it was pretty freaking spectacular. Big surprise I'm sure, but it turns out, coming down a very steep hill is also slightly annoying and required a break.

At my urging, we began the long ride back home and when we finally arrived, Jason whipped up some delicious chicken scampi. Then the sun came out for a few minutes before it set. Even for just a fleeting moment, it was a welcome sight. Finally, we wasted the night away playing Catan and reading by the fire.

DAY EIGHT We should have done more.

DAY EIGHT We should have done more.

We woke on Saturday morning with plans to drive the Cades Cove wildlife loop and hike a trail to Abrams Falls. Once again, we left camp at a dumb time in relation to lunch and had no means of preparing any lunch. Yes, we are that thick headed.

The Loop is an 11 mile, paved, single lane road, going one-way, with a speed limit of 15 mph.  There are several points of interest along the route including numerous old churches, cemeteries, homestead cabins, and trail access points. We stopped at the first log cabin where Marcus proceeded to fall both going up and down the trail to the house. He has been a real disaster this trip, stumbling over rocks, twigs, and seemingly nothing.

Next, we stopped at an old church and cemetery. I got Marcus to do some math at the gravestones to figure out how old each person was when they died. We even found one grave where the birth date was the mid-1700’s.

Our next intended stop was the road to Abrams trail and Abrams Falls. However, when we got to the turn-off, a ranger was waving people to move on and informed us that there had been a medical emergency. Hmm. We wondered to each other, what kind of medical emergency shuts down an entire trail? The next day we found out from a ranger that a man had drowned at the Falls. It had been the second fatality in the park in less than a week. These tragedies, combined with the books I had been buying at the visitor's centers detailing people who had gotten lost surrounded by people and never found in the Smokies, put me into a state of extra, super safety mode.

Since we couldn’t complete the hike we had planned, we stopped at an area which was presented as a small mountain community. It included a working flour mill, two cantilevered barns, a house, and a shack of some sort. The area was beautiful, and the weather was ideal to be outside. Unfortunately, hanger had taken its hold, and we headed back to the camper for some lupper (lunch/supper). Jason made delicious Greek sandwiches, and we sat around the fire playing Carcassone and Phase 10. We finished out the night reading by the fire before we straggled to bed one by one. We slept like dead horses.

Little did we know it would rain for days afterward. We should have done more. 

Land Between the Lakes Pictures

We spent three nights in the Land Between the Lakes. I was worried about this stop not having much planned to do but it was great camping and just a beautiful place.  We stayed at the Energy Lake Campground spot #9.  It was the best spot with a trail right down to the little swimming beach.  The kids had a blast swimming in the lake which was their favorite part of this stop.  We did a little hiking on the North/South trail trying to get to a bay but we never saw the bay and went farther than we had planned, it was pretty buggy, a thunderstorm was starting up, and we were starting to fall apart as a family unit so we turned around and headed back to the car.

First night, in awe of the crazy sounds. We think it's a toad doing an impression of a screaming goat

Playing games on Becky's make shift table

Lucas trying to complete the ladder.  I lost the bet that he couldn't do it.

Our awesome campsite

Boys making a fire. They called this setup the skyscraper.

Marc skim boarding

Before our hike

Luke and Marc at the buoy

Energy Lake from the swim beach

Sam and Becky playing Phase 10

DAY SEVEN The word you’re looking for is AGONY

DAY SEVEN The word you’re looking for is AGONY.

Friday morning was another early day. We had about eight hours of driving in front of us, but more importantly, we had tickets to tour Mammoth Cave about two hours in at 11:30 a.m. Thankfully, we arrived with about an hour to spare before our tour started. We browsed around the visitor shop and bought our souvenirs, then wandered across a foot bridge to snarf down some ice cream before the great descent.

We have been in a few caves, some several times, including Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, and the other day, Ozark Caverns, but this was something completely different. The room they collected our tickets in could have been used to play football in. The enormity of it didn’t quite register with my brain, and I falsely told the boys that this section had been mined out. Nope. Just a gigantic cave room. Jason commented, “you could build an airplane in here. You wouldn’t be able to get it out, but you could build it.”

Not only was the cave unfathomable but our tour guide was something special in his own right. Almost immediately Jason looked at me and said, “I love when we get Vicki.” I nearly died. But he was right. If you have seen “So I Married An Axe Murderer” with Mike Meyers, think of the Alcatraz tour guide—that voice and strange cadence are what we had going on. For the rest of you, why haven’t you seen “So I Married An Axe Murderer”?

Anyway, our guide’s real name was Jerry, and as we walked through the cave, he told the story of two slave brothers who were forced to give guided tours to the extremely wealthy. When we stopped, Jerry gave impassioned accounts of the two young men as they grew up giving tours of Mammoth. In the end, we learned that the men were Jerry’s great-great-grandfather and distant uncle. Jerry was a fifth-generation Mammoth Cave tour guide and was relaying his family history to us. Simply amazing.

Now, something less amazing. It seemed we were stuck ahead of a little boy of maybe four or five, his slightly older sister, and their grandparents. At first, the little boy’s questions and comments were cute, but this was a two-hour walking tour, and soon enough his voice might as well have been a crow cawing continuously. Although, at some point, I’m sure the crow would have gone hoarse. Not this kid. He was a classic case of silence rejection. No more than several seconds passed before he was repeating the same things over, and over, and over, and over.

At the beginning of the tour and one stopping point Jerry mentioned that we would be going through areas known as Tall Man’s Agony and Fat Man’s Misery. This was what the bulk of Chatterbox’s conversations comprised of: “Is this tall man’s misery? I think we just passed the fat man’s part. Was it tall man’s misery or fat man’s misery? Which one was the tall man’s name?” At one point, we were single file in the claustrophobic Fat Man’s Misery section, and Chatterbox was on an unusually long streak of asking about the tall man’s area, “It was tall man’s what? Tall Man’s… What was it?” and without skipping a beat, my sweet, reserved Lucas yelled from the middle of our family, “AGONY.” Yep. It sure was.

After the spectacular Mammoth Cave tour, we hit the road again toward Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains. By the time we reached the 12 mile stretch of road that led to our camping area, it was almost dark, and our GPS was telling us that we still had 45 minutes of drive time. UGH. The road was just a 12-mile string of varying sized S and hairpin turns. By the time we filled water and got to our spot, it was 10:00 p.m.

Setting up in the dark in an unknown area is not ideal. But this particular spot was down -right agony. I tried to talk Jason back into the spot for about a half an hour with zero success. It was a narrow pad, with concrete barriers on both sides, which were just high enough to clip off the stabilizing jacks. It was the scene out of Austin Powers where he gets his golf cart stuck between two walls and went forward and backward in two-inch increments. Good times. Thankfully, some nice guys took pity on us and came down to help. It took the three of them directing Jason another half an hour to finally get into the spot.

Day seven was brought to you by the letter A for Agony. 

DAY SIX Victoria’s Cove or Bust

DAY SIX Victoria’s Cove or Bust.

Spoiler alert: it was a bust. But before we went on the hike to Victoria’s Cove, we stopped at the Land Between the Lakes visitor center and planetarium. None of had ever been to a planetarium, and I was elated. When we arrived, my dreams were slightly dashed, as I envisioned an enormous telescope that was going enable us to look at the stars in the daylight. Does that even exist? At any rate, there was not such a telescope at the LBL planetarium. Instead, we shuffled into a small dome shaped room, and the guide lit up the night sky. He explained the elliptical path and how to find the planets by their characteristics and by following the path through the sky. He then lit the sky up with all of the constellations, focusing on the zodiacs. Finally, he talked about the total eclipse in August. It was still pretty impressive, even without the mythical telescope.

Next, with the rest of us looking on with disapproval, Jason talked to a ranger about nearby trails.  He decided that we were going to hike to Victoria’s Cove from Jenny’s Picnic Area. It was supposed to be an easy little hike, but it was hot and none of us, except Jason, who is ALWAYS ready to hike, wanted to go hiking. Still, we got our packs which were filled with snacks, Gatorade, raincoats, extra clothes, tarps, swimwear, and bear spray (we were ready for everything) and started down the trail to Victoria’s Cove. This was at about 2 p.m. We had not eaten anything substantial since breakfast, but against better judgment we marched into the forest, each on the brink of hangry. I am coming to believe that hanger is similar to hypothermia in that in the deep throws of each, the sufferer is unable to recognize the symptoms and instead starts making poorer and poorer decisions. The former begins to take layers off, exacerbating the freezing and the latter refuses to refuel his body while continuing to push himself to the point of complete exhaustion and irrationality.

After hiking just ten minutes into the forest, Samus started complaining of mosquito activity. This seemed odd given that we had nearly poured on the mosquito spray at the trailhead. As we progressed, he became more and more agitated. This only inflamed Jason’s hanger. With the two of them hiking and arguing in the back, the rest of us marched on through the beautiful canopy, following a stream as we ascended. There’s no telling how far we hiked, but Samus was unrelenting with his complaining which switched from mosquitos to a head and stomach ache. These new physical symptoms caught our attention. Samus is known for overheating, and some of the first signs are head and stomach aches. We stopped dead in our tracks, forced him to drink and pivoted back to the car.

It didn’t seem that we had walked that far, but apparently, we had. It took FOREVER to reach the car. Thankfully though, with the knowledge that we were heading back, everyone was far more pleasant. Even better was, after forcing a bottle of Gatorade down Samus, he suddenly didn’t have any trouble with mosquitos.

The terrible journey towards Victoria’s Cove pretty much ended our day away from the camper. We went back, and the boys swam the night away. 

DAY FIVE Crystal-Clear Waters

Another luxuriously lazy day, waking long after the sunrise and lounging around the campfire until after lunch. I meditated, focusing on all the bird songs being sung around me, while the other four went down to swim in the crystal-clear waters of Energy Lake.

Soon enough they sent a messenger to urge me to come down and swim. “Mom, you HAVE to come swimming. It’s awesome!,” coaxed Samus. “I will, just a minute.” “Mom. Get your trunks on!,” Samus demanded. I looked up and said, “I don’t own any trunks.” Exasperated he replied, “I’ll go get them for you.” “Samus. I do not own any trunks, and I have never owned any trunks.” “But mom! You do too!” “Child. I am a girl. I have several SWIMSUITS in the camper, but I do not have any trunks.” “Oh. Well, get your swimsuit on then!” I relented and headed down our private trail to the beach.

You may know this, but last year we toured and swam in all the Great Lakes. Ever since then, after floating around in beautiful, cold, clear lakes for a month, I have refused to swim in any muddy, murky lakes. So pretty much every other lake ever. That is why I didn’t swim at Lake of the Ozarks. Too muddy. And poopy as it turned out. But, when the boys raved about the “crystal-clear waters” I thought, what the heck.

Apparently, my idea of crystal-clear waters and the boys’ idea of the same thing are vastly different. For instance, while I think of the bathtub as crystal clear, the boys are cool with The Big Sioux. Needless to say, Energy Lake is not the shimmering blue waters of the Carribean. Still, it was my boys, and I do actually love them and want to make them happy, so I reluctantly waded into the muddy-bottomed lake and splashed around with them for a while.

Jason, Marcus, and Samus were like dolphins, jumping, twisting, and gliding through the water head fist. My dear sweet Lucas though—he is definitely my child. We spent our time hopping around and stage yelling, “Ah! What was that?! Ooo! Something touched my leg! Eww! This is really muddy right here. Ah! There’s something swimming by my feet! AH! AAHHH!” To be fair, there are a lot of water snakes in the area. In fact, when we finally decided to disembark one had slithered onto the beach and was getting a drink of water. We stared at it until it started hissing and coiling up. That was enough of that.

The rest of the day comprised of some serious games of Carcassone on a table made from a skim board, camp chair, and a stack of logs, reading, and watching the fire.

Once the kids went to bed, Jason and I were enjoying the crackling fire and the screaming goat frogs, when suddenly the sky let loose and tipped her bucket right on our heads. That seemed like a natural end to the evening, and we went to bed with more happy memories.

**I would like to note that my swimsuit liner, normally white, had turned a nasty baby poop shade of brown after being in the lake.

** Also, here are a few Marcus-isms:

• After showering in the campground bathhouse: “Best shower in my life!!” 
• “Dad, is it more likely for you to get ran over by a train or a car? Which would you rather get hit by? I choose car because you could duck it if you were really small.”
• After I started reading ridiculously soft to him for about three pages after I thought he had dozed off: “Excuse me, mom. Could you read a little bit louder?”    
• “Did you know babies don’t have any fear? Nothing.”
• “Are we going to Oklahoma? It’s a state. I’m pretty sure I announced it correct, right?”
• “I really like trail mix except for the dried up grapes. They’re disgusting.” 
• Referring to a gross scrape on his leg, “Should I be like really freaked out about this?” Jason: No. Why? “Because of the risk of infection.”

Leaving the Lake of the Ozarks (Day 4)

Only picture needed that sums up day 4.  We were extremely lucky and thankful to get our trashy little trailer fixed and be on our way to the Land between the lakes in KY.  Only cost a couple hundred dollars and two hours out of our day.  Thank you QualityRv.

Getting a new brake assembly.  The wires were tore off the magnet on the old one causing a short.