Like the Jersey Turnpike, but better

Wow. Imagine an S, twisted along both the vertical and horizontal dimensions, that travels through the greenest places. Plunge, twist, turn, lunge, gasp, smile, repeat. That was and is the Blue Ridge Parkway.

It defied all of my history of road travel, designed as it is not to go somewhere but rather to be there. Along the Blue Ridge Parkway, every mile is your destination. Never have I been on a drive that felt so much like a hike through the woods.

Our second day traveling along the parkway we came to a small town called Little Switzerland. There was a book & record shop, a diner, and wine & cheese shop, and a general store.

Books, wine, & cheese - they have everthing

In other words, it had everything. There was a slow deliberation about everyone there that seemed the perfect manifestation of the parkway: even in motion, everyone was where they needed to be.We ate yogurt and oatmeal at the café, and Dayna bought me a shirt that says ‘Not all who wonder are lost’ from the general store. According to the label, it was made by a company called ‘Life’s Good’ that was started by two guys traveling, living, and selling shirts of their van. It seemed poetic.

Where the party’s at

We stopped in Asheville primarily to visit Dayna’s cousins and because it was on the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I’m glad we got a chance to spend some time here.

The entire populace of the town is imbued with a sort of hippie hillbilly chic, and one gets the feeling that everyone they meet, from the gas station attendant to the fast food cashier, will be playing a digeridoo or the bongos in an amazing hillbilly jam band later that evening, and will be mounting an expedition into the Himalayas later in the month. Not to mention the fact that the town seems to have public space specifically dedicated to hacky sack, and I massively respect that.

I’m afraid we spent most of our visit in Asheville at a Laundromat. It didn’t take that long to wash our clothes, but I made a profound mistake while we were there that detained us for quite some time.

I decided while our clothes were in the wash to ‘fix’ the passenger’s side door of the van. It had lately developed an ailment that made it impossible to open from the inside. The idea of performing the hooptie reach around for the rest of the trip was very distasteful, as both Dayna and I were very eager to avoid giving the ‘living in a van down by the river’ impression. So I decided the pop open the door and fix whatever was wrong, despite the fact that we were to meet Dayna’s cousins as soon as we finished with our laundry. “How hard could it be?” I thought. “It’s a purely physical mechanism”.

The door after I fixed it

Four hours later I’d fixed the door by making it impossible to open from both the inside and the outside, and homeless people were seriously invading my personal space to point our various mechanisms within the door and give inane advise like: “You see that metal piece there below the doodad – it needs to move man, it needs to move: know what I’m saying”. Dayna’s cousins were waiting, but we couldn’t leave because I knew that if I shut the door in its current state I might not be able to get in open again.

I finally realized that if I left the door partially disassembled we’d be able to open it by fiddling directly with the lock mechanism, and we traveled in that fashion to Dayna’s cousins’ house. The wind roaring in through the door and rattling throughout the cabin, Dayna checked her seat belt and asked: “Is it safe?”. I of course had no idea, but I think I lied well enough to reassure her. We finally met up with Dayna’s cousins at 11pm.

Our very warm and wet welcome party

Despite our extreme tardiness, we were greeted enthusiastically and warmly by Dayna’s cousins and their two St. Bernard’s. Being greeted enthusiastically by a St. Bernard is rather like being greeted enthusiastically by a warm fuzzy slobbery avalanche – not necessarily unpleasant but a bit overwhelming.The next morning, Dayna toured a local park with her cousins and I fixed the door for real.

It is a symbol of our times that the gateway to one of the few unspoiled wilderness areas in the Eastern United States is in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Last Food for 500 feet

Have you ever been behind someone in the snack line at the movies, and overheard an order so large that it seemed more like the food supply of a Himalayan expedition than a night at the movies: “Yes, I’d like two large popcorns… no, not that one, the bucket sized ones, with extra extra butter, and two large nachos with extra cheese and jalapenos on the side, and two dove bars, and a box of snowcaps. And two big gulp Diet Cokes with extra ice.”

Often times these individuals have clearly just come from the All American Buffet, and aren’t feeling any hunger pains. I suspect the reason that some people order all that crap is the same reason that some Americans feel compelled to drive Hummers: Just In Case.

They know that they are going to be in a dark theatre with no immediate food or drink supply for 2 hours (3 and a half hours for Oliver Stone movies and historical epics). 2 hours! If they get hungry and don’t prepare ahead of time, they might have to eat their own children.

The ‘Just in Case’ maximum preparation imperative is the only way I can explain the vast and overwhelming orgy of capitalism that presents itself in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Given how Americans prepare to go the movies, you can imagine how they might prepare to go into the honest to goodness woods.

The path less traveled

Goofy golf, go-karts, laser tag, flying rolls, singing bears, the ‘Fabulous Wallendas’, restaurants with names like the “Great American Beef Steak All you can Eat Buffet” that run promotions like “Eat 40 pounds of beef get a FREE Big Gulp Icee with souvenir Smoky Mountain cup” – this is Pigeon Forge. An outlet to gorge yourself on any inane need, urge, or impulse you might have before you enter the woods and have to do without.It’s made even more funny by the fact that the vast majority of the visitors to the Park never lose sight of their car. They crawl along the scenic drive in bumper to bumper traffic, hop out of the car at a scenic vista or two to take a picture, and then hop right back into the car. Though the roadways can be a bit busy in the park, the hiking trails are practically abandoned. What they hell are these people bulking up on calories for. If you drive the whole way through the park the next Applebee’s is less than three hours away. Maybe they’re afraid the Ford Expedition will break down that they’ll have to push it out.

Luckily, the strip mall cacophony outside the park only serves to highlight the splendor within. The boundary between the outside chaos and inside serenity is so distinct it provokes an almost involuntary sigh of contentment.

They really are smoky - go figure

Though it shouldn’t have, it came as a surprise when I discovered just how ‘smoky’ the Great Smoky Mountains are. According to my guidebook, the mist is caused by a combination of air pollution and the ‘water and hydrocarbons emitted by a closely packed array of air breathing leaves’. Whatever it’s caused by, the majesty of it is apparent. The landscape feels timeless and primordial – and though I’ve seen many mountain ranges before, the lushness of the mountainscape here was foreign to my experience.

We took the Newfound Gap Road through the park, taking time out for the Chimney Tops Overlooks (which provided a good overview of the entire park) and the Alum Cave Bluffs hiking trail. The Bluff’s trail ran directly through an absolutely striking passageway in Arch Rock carved by eons of erosion.

Authentic Indian Gambling

After that we headed over to the Cherokee Indian Reservation (located within the park), imagining that the place would be an even more pristine park within the park. Instead we a miniature Indian style Pigeon Forge, complete with a mechanical bull, Indian Casino, and ‘authentic’ Indian Village that we didn’t get to see because it closed at 6. Surprisingly, I didn’t begrudge the commercial presence within the park – probably because I couldn’t fault Native Americans for trying to make a living on the few resources that weren’t stolen from them outright. Plus, we found a decent ‘Authentic Native American’ pizza parlor there just in time for dinner.

This freaked me out

Throughout the park (near every visitor center) we saw signs that proclaimed ‘Designated First Amendment Expression Area’ that seemed to us to be a disturbing and Orwellian intepretation of our Freedom of Speech: “Each man is endowed with certain inalienable rights, which may be exercised in areas designated by the proper authority”. I couldn’t help but wander if these designated areas were setup by George W – it seems like him.

Orwellian overtones and commercial exploitation aside, the park was sublime.