A Story About Life and Living It

After our brief stop in Kentucky we continued on towards one of the most anticipated destinations on our trip: Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The drive was nice, but nothing compared to the scenery that awaited us in the park. We had previously chosen to backpack in to a campsite. Since it was getting late in the afternoon we opted for a two mile hike back into the woods. The drive to the trail head was amazing as we followed a small creek through the woods. From the trail head we hiked up over one hill and then back down into the river bottom to camp near a different stream:

Cool bridge, huh?

I set up camp while Lani set about preparing dinner. In other words, she tried to boil water to add to a dehydrated backpacking meal. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to clean the stove before we left so it was having none of it. We went to bed quite hungry, but at least we were in a pretty spot. On her way to bed, Lani saw a huge snake, so she was a bit on edge. I, on the other hand, was only worried about bears since biologists estimate that there are about 1500 black bears in the park, which comes out to two per square mile. As it turns out, our concerns were not realized.


The spot was so nice we thought we'd include some more pictures of it:




In the morning we headed back out. Thankfully we had energy bars to eat because the stove was still not cooperating.



When we were almost back to the car we saw the largest millipede we'd ever seen in our lives. Here you can see it compared to my hand.


We stopped by the visitor's center on the way out and looked around the museum, which mostly contains taxidermied specimens of the many wildlife species that roam the park.


Our next stop was perhaps a highlight of the trip. Somehow we had discovered that in Gatlinburg, TN, just outside the entrance to the park, was the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers. We decided to give it a try since enjoying the odder side of Americana was one of the ideas behind this trip anyway.


The museum is owned and run by an elderly European woman who told us that she loves the shakers because of how much creativity their creators had put into what is normally a benign household object. The museum contains over 20,000 pairs of shakers. They came in shapes ranging from vegetables, all sorts of animals, spaceships, and anything else your imagination can come up with. We tried to pick just our favorites to show here but that was too hard, so we gave up and put in quite a few pictures. Click on them to make them larger so you can see everything that's going on.


It's not everyday you see the building that you were married in replicated in salt shaker form. Notice that the Salt Lake Tabernacle is the other piece of the set:


Lani really liked the sushi plate:


Here's a hodgepodge of other shakers for your viewing pleasure. Just notice the shear volume.















After we declined to buy a $50 set of souvenir shakers in the gift shop (we didn't really have to think about that one too hard) we set off for Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee. It is found right in the middle of the National Park straddling the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. It is also the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. After our backpacking trip and the hike in Virginia just two days earlier we opted for an easier route that involved driving up to within a half mile of the top and then walking the paved trail the last little bit up to the UFO-shaped viewing tower:


The view was fantastic. We could see for miles. Thanks to the handy mountain identification guides on top (to my right in the below picture) we were able to discern our next target, Mt Mitchell, even though it is 70 miles away as the crow flies!


We were unable to find the actual USGS marker on top, so we settled for this gift shop picture instead:


We really enjoyed our time in Tennessee and especially in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Near the top of Clingman's Dome was a quote from John Muir, the environmentalist best known for his work in establishing several national parks in California. We feel like it summed up our entire trip pretty well: