To Charlotte (Sat.)

Reluctantly, we left the beautiful Great Smoky National Park this morning.  We sure enjoyed our time here in this park.  I would love to see it in the fall when all the leaves are turning.  Maybe that will happen some day.

We learned more about the fireflies.  This time of year, and this place, are special because of the synchronization of the fireflies.  Apparently, they all light up at once, then flicker a few times, then go dark.  And repeat.  Now we didn't know to watch for synchronization when we looked for them Thursday night on our drive, so I guess we missed something. 

Friday night we did go back to our Firefly Cafe -- that's where we learned this piece of information.  Also, there is only one other place in the world that this happens, somewhere in Southeast Asia.  And if a person drilled a hole in a globe and stuck a straw straight through from here in the Smokies, that would be the other place.    It was raining and we were pretty tired, so we did not go our evening drive.  Last night's bears would be hard to top so we thought we would just leave with those memories.

After much debate about our route out of here, Joe opted to drive back the Scenic 73 through Gatlinburg so right down the main drag we went, Explorer in tow.  The rock walls along this route extend right to the road, and the cars we meet don't always stay on their side of the yellow line, so it was a bit unnerving.   Mazie would not have liked this ride.  Fortunately, we didn't hit anything or run over anybody, but the opportunity was there. 

We made our way over to I-40 and headed to Asheville.  From there, I made the mistake of selecting Hwy. 74A, which looked like a regular highway cutting diaganally toward Charlotte.  This turned out to be another scenic drive, no trucks allowed (we are pretty sure we were not allowed on this road either because it had a weight limit of 13,000 lbs, which we exceed).  Most of the road was hairpin curves, up and down mountains, and through little tourist towns such as Chimney Rock Village and Lake Lure.

Poor Joe.  It was a hard day's driving for him.  And when we finally got onto another highway, the regular 74 I think, we still had 50 miles to go.  And we never found a place to pull off for lunch.  We did fuel before we got to Charlotte, $3.299, but we usually were seeing it for $3.459.   So he was not a happy camper.  Campgrounds around Charlotte are not too plentiful, but we did find one just across the state line in South Carolina.  We got in here about 4:30, got hooked up, then drove out to find some dinner.  Paul and Hannah drove out to visit us when we got back (we needed some technical help on our new phones, which Hannah is expert level (Paul's no slouch either).

Paul has entered the world of "hammocking."  He just last weekend went on a 12-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail, with other "hammockers"  for a "group hang."  He said the first one of these he went to, he was a little apprehensive about a group hang in South Carolina, but it turned out to be fun.   Instead of tents, they hang hammocks in trees and that's where they sleep.  Less weight than carrying a tent in their backpack, gets you up off the ground.  He posted a video on Utube of last weekend's trip. 

Today, Sunday, we intend to take it easy.  We plan to go hang out at Paul and Becky's this afternoon, and Paul offered to grill something for dinner.  Sounds like a great plan!