July 20, 2015–Day 15 Hiwassee, TN to Cherohala Skyway

  • Aug 01, 2015
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We were able to leave the fly off the tent last night.  What a beautiful view to wake up to. Cody was demonstrating, “the squirm is strong with him,” moments after his bright eyes opened.

The kids turned the camp chairs into a train while Scott made breakfast and I cleaned up the tent.  Our little campground without a well or a fee was beautiful and fairly bug free, but the pit toilets…oh my.  I took Cody up to the pit toilet and… I have visited A LOT of pit toilets in my almost nineteen years of traveling with Scott, but never has one caused my stomach to instantly unravel. It was an fantastic mom moment.  I lined the potty seat with toilet paper for Cody and then came back out to get him and was instantly sick.  He looked at me with big eyes asking if I was for real asking him to go in there. He survived and didn’t get sick either.  Brooke had tons of fun running ahead and telling Scott the details.

We came back to our campsite and while Scott was cleaning the dishes a butterfly decided to perch on Scott’s head. The dancing butterflies brought the beauty back to the morning.

I brought the kids their toothbrushes at their worksite down at the creek.  Before we left the Lost Creek we visited with our camp neighbors Herb and Jeff from Madison, IN.  A town we went through at the beginning of this trip. Herb owns the Big Boy Restaurant in Madison. They were Navy buddies who had spent the last forty years chasing each other’s families across the country.  They had quite the setup.  My favorite part of their setup was the classical music and two fires.  They have learned throughout the years that they need a cooking fire and a warming or playing fire.  This would have helped with the cobbler we made last night.  Scott kept trying to tell us to tone down playing with the fire, but even for me I was enjoying feeding the fire last night.  That’s how we burnt the outside of our cobbler.  Turns out there was still plenty to gobble up. They would have been fun neighbors to have another night, but we were on our way out.

 

Mary, a volunteer at this beautiful Ocoee Whitewater Center, told us entertaining stories about this area and led us to our next adventure, driving along the Cherohala Skyway.  She had been an RN in Chicago.  Yet again Scott’s endless supply of The Illinois Bone Institute t-shirts started a conversation. Mary told us about the Whitewater Olympic games that were held here in 1996. She said they had a super tight security force create a cabin not far from the Whitewater Center to keep away any possible misfits.  It turns out the only misfits were the bears who ate all the rubber off of the doors and any other surfaces they could.

Scott and I visited here in the winter on 1997.  There had been a giant smiley face on one of the rocks, but I couldn’t find it.  The water was turned off when we visited then too.  I would love to visit here sometime when they have a whitewater event and the water is running.

The picture of Brooke pointing came with the following conversation: Brooke -  “I want to go over there.” Me – “Brooke, you keep moving to another rock and then saying you really want to be at the next rock.” Brooke – “You can call me crazy if you want to.” Me – “No, I’ll just call you a Bouchard.” Brooke – “That’s the same as calling me crazy.”

Bald River Falls

Moments after getting back in dry clothes and back into the van an afternoon squall stirred up sending the trees flailing like blades of grass. Scott decided to find a place to camp instead of trying to view the scenic Cherohala Skyway in the midst of a storm.

Scott was absolutely giddy when he found a primitive camping site off of Route 165 close to the turnoff for Indian Boundary Campground.

The kids wrote letters and drew pictures to each other in the van while I set up the tent and Scott cooked up a dinner of chicken and a rice packet.  We ate dinner in the van.  Scott suggested watching a movie in the tent.  We watched Brave on an IPAD using the Bluetooth speaker while the storm swirled around us.

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