Out Of New Mexico
After the cheapest and smokiest breakfast of this trip in Clovis, I left Virtual Texas [eastern New Mexico] for Real Texas via Bovina which, yes, is full of cows. I cut across the Texas Panhandle, immensely flat country, green because it'd rained recently. Alien country: I observed numerous mutilated cattle and complex crop circles. I went thru Turkey Trot TX, home of Bob Wills; the town was mostly populated with wrought-iron or painted-wood cowboy silhouttes. Nice ironwork...
I reached the Prairie Dog Town Fork Of The Red River Of The South, delineating the Texas-Oklahoma border, and drove the north bank eastward as the land became less and less Western. As for the food... well, we won't talk about that. Even the Mexicans running a taqueria had obviously been in Oklahoma too long, or had learnt to cook for the locals. [shudder] Without Subway I'd've died.
In southeast Oklahoma my strength finally gave out, and I took the first and most expensive motel room of the trip. In the East, in mid-October, the situation just isn't right for roadside camping, not when the goal is to complete the trip in real-time, without succumbing to exposure or brigands, etc. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day... See my day 4 notes, eh?
Now I was to retrace some of a trip taken 23 years ago, in the other direction. Then, hitchhiking from upstate New York to Pomona CA via Mexico City, I'd gotten a long ride from Shenandoah Nat'l Park, down the Blue Ridge Parkway, across Tennessee and Arkansas, across the Wachitas [the mountains just south of the Ozarks], and across Texas to Del Rio. Now, to reverse the mountain portion of that trip, eh?
Yes, as I recalled, the Wachitas look somewhat like the Sierra foothills, at least in the west. Easterly, they get greener, more deciduous, lower and more rolling.
And then there's the crystals. Mount Ida AR is atop a mountain of quartz; the previous weekend saw a Crystal Digging Championship, open to all comers. The streets are lined with crystal stores, quartz dealers, mineral gift shops. Storefronts displaying crafted goodies fronted warehouses lined with tablesfull of quartz, citrine, amythest, etc.
So I bought a few crystals and proceeded to Hot Springs, Little Rock, Memphis, the Tennessee River, and another motel. I recall trucks, and that's about it. See my day 5 notes.
By now, I'd been on the road long enough to have dug a place into the driver's seat, adjusted my legs to the cramped space, attuned my reflexes to the necessities of the Jeep. I entered a sort of fugue state, perfectly aware of what's around me, aware of the trucks and signals and endless roadwork and countryside, but not too concerned with any of that. I just buzzed along inside my head. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...
Some of the things I learnt whilst driving across Tennessee:
But then I hit Sevierville and Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.
Then there's Gatlinburg and its ski area, Ober Gatlinburg, a compendium of every over-exploited ski hell you've ever seen. Narrow winding streets overflowing with humanity, zillions of "quaint" shops similarly encumbered, all looking Swissoid in a Tennessee sort of way. Check it out.
Finally I got up into Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the drive to the top was rather like the route I take on Sweetwater Springs Road from Guerneville to the Hop Kiln and Rochioli Wineries below Healdsburg, when I don't take Westside Road along the Russian River. Except there's fewer tourists along Sweetwater Springs Road - they stick to wineries and easier drives.
Yes, the Great Smokies are beautiful, and mile-high, and the Blue Ridge Parkway is also mile-high along much of its 400-mile route, and I wasn't prepared for camping in these conditions; so I headed downhill in the twilight and looped back over the Appalachians, back to the Interstate in darkness.
But just east of the park is Cherokee town and the small Cherokee indian reservation, packed with gift shops full of all the cheap, shoddy crap you've ever seen in every other park tourist trap in North America, all concentrated together here. I'm told that local Cherokees are hired to stand out front during the day, to imitate cigar-store Indians. This is demeaning. Welcome to stereotypical Injun country. Ugh.
So back to the freeways, and on to Bristol, partly in Tennessee, partly in Virginia, and another motel, and a late-night meal at a Dennys-clone patronized by the fattest population I've ever seen. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. See my day 6 notes.
Grazing The South
So I crossed many rivers and lakes, got stuck in a traffic jam next to the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, skooted around Nashville and Knoxville, then hopped off the Interstate for my long-anticipated run through Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Approaching Appalachia
