Driving to the Smokies

 First Day (Tuesday, April 4)

  So we dropped Carly off at her new kennel. She was so thrilled to get a paper collar, like one of those hospital bracelets every patient gets. That was the high point of the day. Which, when all we're doing is driving across Texas and Louisiana on the freeway, isn't a bad thing. We had breakfast at Panchito's on McCullough and lunch at an IHOP along the freeway east of Houston. I checked Google Maps and figured that we could make Pascagoula at a reasonable hour, so I tried to book a hotel there; the Wyndham website kept telling me there were no hotels available. I figured I'd try again later.

  By the time we stopped at the rest area in the Atchafalaya Basin, it had become clear that Pascagoula was a tad optimistic. At that point, the traffic through Baton Rouge, which normally makes Austin seem rural in comparison, was at a dead stop, both before the bridge and approaching the 10/12 Split, so I modified my expectations and tried for Hammond. Still couldn't get the web site to work, so had to call and make a reservation on the phone, which took way too long (20 minutes) but got it done. The customer service rep I spoke to put me on hold so he could confirm the reservation, but he couldn't get a response either, so he just sent me the confirmation email and that was that. Now we're at the hotel, which is less than a quarter full, so not a problem.

  One other high point for today: there's now a Don's Seafood Restaurant located in Hammond, not far from out hotel. When I lived in Lafayette, 40 years ago, that was the place to go for top-quality seafood. It has not changed. I had an outstanding plate of catfish topped with crawfish étoufée, while Sherry had stuffed catfish. Both were excellent, though if I'm being honest -- rigourously honest, you know -- hers was the better of the two. 

  And one other happy note: Trump was arraigned today. I caught a glimpse of it on a TV screen somewhere along the way. It's way past time for that.

Second Day (Wednesday, April 5)

  Well, this was a pretty good day: drove across the tail of Mississippi and up the interstate to Montgomery, Alabama, where we finally got to go to the Lynching Museum. I forget what it's really called, but it consists of two facilities, the memorial that I've been to twice before, both on days when it's closed, and a museum a few blocks away, in downtown. 

  The memorial is an awesome place. It reminds me of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin for its simplicity of design. Steel blocks inscribed with the names of lynching victims and dates hang from the ceiling of a very large rectangular building. Duplicates of the blocks are laid out in the courtyard, arranged alphabetically by state and county, so visitors can see who is known to have been lynched in a particular place. (I found that one lynching victim from Bexar County, Texas, has been identified: one Alexander Washington, killed on October 11, 1886.)*

  It was near closing time when we got to the museum (after a long, trying search for somewhere open for lunch at 3:00 in the afternoon), so we kind of had to hurry through that. It's just as well: the exhibits it contains are pretty damn overwhelming in their portrayal of slavery, Jim Crow, and modern American use of the criminal justice system as a tool of oppression. (I would have disagreed with that to some extent, had not certain people in power in the Federal government in my lifetime made belated but still-horrifying admissions from time to time; think Nixon, think Trump.)

  We drove on into the evening, and are now lodged in another Days Inn, this one in Gadsden, Alabama. There's a state park with a 90-foot waterfall, ten minutes up the road, so we plan to visit there in the morning before heading up toward Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia, which we may or may not visit, depending on the weather. 

  Oh, and! Next to our hotel is a convenience store/liquor store which sells moonshine from a distillery in Gatlinburg, where we will be passing. I looked it up on line to add to our trip plans, and found there's also one, with a tasting room, a short distance from our hotel in Pigeon Forge. One more thing to do while were there, and that one doesn't depend on the weather. Mmmm... I can almost taste it now.

Third Day (Thursday, April 6)

  A day of ups and downs. First thing this morning, we drove up to a place called Noccalula Falls Park, just above Gadsden, where there's a 90-foot-high waterfall, and a trail that goes along the creek, behind the falls, and back down the other side of the creek to a suspension bridge, then back up to the access trail. I was never so unprepared for a hike in my life. 

Noccalula Falls

  First, the trail appeared to be a level, broad well-tended path, so I wore my boat shoes. Uh-uh. Once you get down to the creekside, it's a rocky up-and-down slog, not terribly difficult, but difficult in boat shoes. By the time I realized that, I was fully committed.

  Second, it appears I'm not entirely acclimated to my new eyeglass lenses, and I found that, at a few important moments, the ground was not quite where it seemed to me to be. I have a couple of new scrapes and light bruises as a result.

  Third, I was excited to be able to use my new hiking poles, which I got for Christmas. Sherry grabbed them out of the back of the car and carried them off for me. When we got to the climb down to the creek, I set the length on one, then started to set the length on the other, only to discover that I had neglected to cut the zip-tie that held the two poles together in the store. You know, those things are impossible to destroy without a sharp blade. I happened to have a pair of good scissors in the car, but by the time I realized the need, it was too far to go back to the car. So I just used one, but had to hold both handles in my hand, which was more than a little inconvenient. (Soon as I got back to the car, the scissors came out.)

  And fourth, we didn't expect a half-mile trail to require a four-mile hike of about two and a half hours, and we had no water with us. In the end, we decided that we would not walk through under the falls, as it looked too slippery and sloping; instead we went back the way we'd come; and rather than going all the way back to the suspension bridge and up, we took a short cut through the Day-Use Park ("Stop! Do Not Enter Without Park Wristband!" F**k that.) We found that, in order to reach our car from there, we'd have to walk all the way to the far end of the Day-Use Park, about half a mile, and then about another half-mile along the highway to the parking lot we were in. Or we could just go under the chain-link fence separating the two parks, which was only fastened at the top. Sherry caught her hoodie on the fence -- she's a lousy criminal -- while I rolled under with no trouble (except having to use my hiking poles to stand up).

  I don't normally do things like that, but it felt really good to be so brazen. Like escaping from prison, but in broad daylight.

  Noccalula, by the way, is the name of an "Indian Princess" who supposedly jumped to her death rather than marry outside her tribe. Romeo and Juliet with a miscegenative twist. This is Alabama, after all.

*It turns out that this lynching actually took place in Atascosa County; the town where it happened, Somerset, was later moved to Bexar County.

Here's a link to all the pictures from this trip. 

Click on "Newer Post," below, to continue reading about this voyage.

Low Expectations

This was written on April 3, but won't be published until later for security reasons.

 Some time back, my wife and I were talking about places we'd been that we would particularly like to go back to some day. There are a lot, for her and for me, but one in particular we agreed on, enthusiastically: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in Tennessee and North Carolina. So it was with that in mind that, having been forced by a poorly-designed mobile website to call Wyndham Rewards on the phone from a Wendy's parking lot in Kansas, and having been subjected to a pointless (though they don't know it) pitch for their Wyndham Resorts program (a sort of time-sharing venture), I accepted an offer for a 3-night stay in their facility in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near that national park. They threw in a $200 gift card as a sweetener when I resisted the first offer. That won't begin to cover the expense of getting to eastern Tennessee, but it helps. Sure, we'll have to sit through another hour-and-a-half presentation on the joys of timeshare ownership, but we can do that.

So a few weeks later I selected a time for the trip, after consultation with my wife about her schedule. At that point, neither of us had any definite travel plans, so the choice came down to the timing of her local team's soccer matches, and Easter was the best time for her to be away. 

Well. The trip is nearly upon us: we leave in the morning. My diligent-albeit-meaningless travel plans have already been pushed back a day because of an unforeseen family situation. so the trip over will be three days instead of four (though we might take an extra day coming back). And of course my excitement at the thought of driving around the southern Appalachian Mountains in my little convertible has been quashed by the realities of weather (highs in the 50s and strong chance of thunderstorms are really not "convertible weather"), so we'll be puttering across country in my aging, but still reliable Subaru Forester. (I say reliable: the stereo's Bluetooth has died for a second time, so we'll be limited to music and radio, no audio books. That's a real blow, but I'm damned if I'm going to get that fixed again.)

Really, the biggest things about this coming trip are (1) the dog and (2) other plans.

When both of us go somewhere, we like to take our dog with us. That means we go to places where she'll be welcome: primarily our family outposts in Colorado and Arizona, but also occasionally to other places. But more often, it means only one of us goes, and the other stays home with the dog. My wife goes to see her sister, and I stay home with the dog. I go on a wander, and she stays home with the dog. She goes to a tournament, and I stay home with the dog. It works for us. (At least, it works for me; I assume it works for her. Seems to, anyway.) But our sweet little dog is not welcome at Wyndham Resorts (another reason we won't be buying into it, as if we needed another reason), and so she's going to the boarding kennel for a while. I hate that.

And then there are the other plans. Like I said, when we picked these dates we had no other travel plans except a vague notion that at a certain point in mid-to-late April my wife would be out in Arizona for a couple of weeks with her sister. They do it every year. Nothing else was planned for the entirety of 2023, at least until a vague point in October when another regular trip comes 'round. It seemed like a safe bet to put this trip on the calendar for Easter.

beautiful scenery, tarted up

I'll make this the short verion: we do not have time for this trip. We do not want to go. We wish we had not committed to do so. There is no time in 2023 when we would want to be in Tennessee for a long weekend. And that will be true for every year into the foreseeable future. We will still enjoy the National Park, if it doesn't rain too much, but the truth is these resorts are not in places, as a rule, that interest us or suit the sort of travel we like to do. We have no interest in the commercial tourist attractions of Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg; they don't include anything of interest to either of us. It's like another Branson, Missouri: beautiful scenery, tarted up. 

(I did stay in a Wyndham Resort in New Orleans a couple of months ago, and it was very nice, but it's just a regular hotel with a good price and a good location; there was nothing "resort-ish" about it, that I could see.)

Also, I watched part of John Oliver's recent commentary on time-shares, which I recommend to anyone considering ever buying into one.