I was up early, as is my wont, and sat outside Towed Haul putting my blog together whilst the DeSoto Caverns playground came to life. First it was the piped music, banjo laced country, which gave the place a surreal feel given that the park was themed on the Spanish explorer DeSoto, although maybe DeSoto liked his Bluegrass, who knows? Then it was the customers, arriving at 9am on the dot, no doubt to avoid the heat of the later day. The rest of Team Toad were a little slower in moving but it was a short driving day so that didn't really matter.
We discovered that we'd been overrun by ants and that they were everywhere. I'd seen people spraying their stablizers the night before and now I knew why. A bit of retrospective spraying, inside and out, helped a bit but I think we were a tad late. We were eventually away by midday, chucking out time, and headed back to Childersburg against the wishes of the Sat Nav. I'd seen some of the back roads here and the torturous route it had planned wasn't going to be great for us towing the trailer. Even on the fairly major road it was narrow and twisty, making the going slow but at least it afforded us the opportunity to look at the countryside. We'd already seen that a lot of Americans live in very old trailer homes, that is the sort of thing that you might get in a static caravan park, only they were about 30 years old and usually plonked down in a field. These homes ranged from reasonable to something that would make your garden shed look palatial, and all looked as if they'd taken root over many years; in rural Alabama they were everywhere and served to remind us of the contrasts again.
Heading north we entered Pell City, nice enough but the sort of place that young people want to get away from, then moved into a hillier, more wooded area that had fewer but more affluent homes. The drive was actually very pleasant and the fuel consumption went from “Aaargh!” to just “Ouch!”, which was a bonus.
We eventually reached the highway and made for Knoxville, passing through Alabama, a tiny bit of Georgia and Tennessee on the way. The road surface north of Birmingham was hideous, Towed Haul jumping about more than I like, which was then compounded with a 15 mile section of single line roadway, on the southbound side of the freeway, where I had a concrete barrier on one side and slight dip on the other. I found that if I ran a safe distance from the barrier then the trailer kept dropping into the dip and pulling the car about, but if I ran close to the wall I could avoid all that movement. The lesser of the two evils, close to the barrier, was chosen but I still emerged from that section with my hands and neck aching badly from the extra concentration. I knew that all my shirts would have jumped of the wardrobe rail by the time we were through for the day. As an aside, we saw quite a few dead armadillos on the shoulder, some squashed and some just laying on their backs with their legs in the air. Armadillos are not, of course, indigenous to North America but they have thrived since escaping from zoos and private owners. I say thrived but I don't think that those living near the highway were thriving.
We were making steady progress when we crossed back into the Eastern Time Zone and promptly lost an hour. Then we stopped at the redoubtable IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for supper. Now IHOP occupied a special place in my heart as on a work trip to the US a few years ago I'd eaten many pancakes and waffles in an IHOP outlet at ridiculous times in the early morning. I had no idea if IHOP had thrived, maybe it had gone the way of the roadside armadillo, but here was a chance to find out and into a vacant parking lot next to the restaurant we rolled, fortunate that it was there as we'd never have been able to get Towed Haul into the IHOP lot. Copious amounts of drinks, waffles and pancakes later, we all agreed that whilst not great cuisine, it was cheap and cheerful and that view was clearly supported by the steady stream of locals in and out of the place.
We were only about 40 minutes from the campground, so it was a gentle run through, heading straight towards the Smoky Mountains, looming up ahead of us. The Smokys are a part of the Appalachian chain, an ancient range stretching from Southern Georgia right up into Maine and even Quebec and New Brunswick in Canada. The Appalachians were once as high as the Himalayas but time has eroded them to rounded, tree covered hills; still high and still large but on a smaller and more agreeable scale. They looked wonderful in the evening light.
Our campsite was nestling in a narrow gap between two mountains and stood by a neat little river. It was a commercial site so the RVs were lined up in fairly close proximity, but the facilities were good with a pool, games room and WiFi, all designed for the Tadpoles' enjoyment. By the time we were set up, it was getting dark so a short swim for the Tadpoles and a bit of planning time for us, saw us settled in and ready for bed. All this in the comfort of temperatures only in the mid-twenties, which was a welcome relief after the Gulf Coast and Florida.
Tomorrow will see us visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Knoxville, which should be good. My Aunt still has a broad Dorset accent, even after 40 years over here, so I'm looking forward to talking to her! Catch up tomorrow for tales of familial cordiality, or something like that.
