Indulge Me With Another Rant

Thursday, 19 April

I just don’t get it.  Honestly, I’ve racked my brain trying to understand why people feel the need to leave their mark by defacing things, but I still don’t get it.

From the “call me for a good time” phone numbers on the doors and walls of public toilets … to the “Jack ♥ Jill” professions of love carved into trees … to the “John Was Here” on whatever date scribblings on whatever surface is available … I just don’t get any of them.

We’ve been traveling for over 30 years now, and we’ve seen graffiti everywhere we’ve gone; in every city and country and continent we’ve visited.  Well, OK; we didn’t see any in Antarctica, but that’s a rare exception.

Not once have we been tempted to leave our mark in such an ugly way.  In fact, we try to make sure that we leave no more than our footprints behind … ever.  Is there some joy in defacing things that we’re missing out on?  Are we going to be scarred for life because we’ve neglected to write our names on a wall somewhere?  If so; then so be it.  We can live without that kind of “ugly” joy.

We came across this Bob Was Here sign the first day that we ventured into the park.  It was on the trail behind the John Oliver Place.  There were several others scattered around the park as well.  You can read the words for yourself (click for a bigger version if necessary).

How sad it is that we even need such signs.  Not that they seem to be doing much good; we saw graffiti on the walls of every heritage building we went into — some as new as 2010.  There were probably newer ones, but I was so disgusted that I turned away, helpless to do anything about it.

Just some of the graffiti we saw at the Gregg-Cable House and the Lawson Place.

And then there was the cross vine hanging down over the Abrams Falls Trail on the way to the falls; gone by the time we trekked back two hours later.  Needless destruction of another sort.  But I’ll limit my rant to one topic and save that one for a later time.  Unfortunately, we’re bound to encounter more of both as we continue to travel.

Cades Cove Heritage Sites (Part III)

Thursday, 19 April

After leaving the Cable Mill Area (post here), we headed off to explore the last of the heritage sites along the top of the Cades Cove Loop.  Even though there was more traffic by the time we got to these sites, we noticed that few people stopped to check them out.  In fact, most just rolled their vehicles to a stop, took a photo, and moved on.  Not complaining; we enjoyed having these places to ourselves — especially the Carter Shields Cabin, where later in the day we enjoyed a private picnic.

This post covers sites 15, 16, and 17 on the map scanned from the auto tour booklet.

The Dan Lawson Place (#15 on the map) was our first stop.  It is believed that he built the house around 1856 on land he purchased from Peter Cable, his father-in-law.  Originally a log house, it was altered by the addition of sawed lumber and expanded over time.

The Dan Lawson Place as seen from outside the snake rail fence.

This property has some features that are considered unusual for that time and place — a brick chimney and a granary (wheat wasn’t grown in the area; and corn was kept in cribs).  I suppose one might think of them of symbols of the wealth Lawson acquired over the years.  The quality of the interior construction, which is said to be one of the better ones in the park, also speaks to his wealth, and perhaps to the carpentry skills of his father-in-law, who helped Lawson with the construction.

Clockwise from top left: View from the front porch; the inside faces of the logs in
the main room are hewn smooth with an adze; the granary; the view from the
property; the lumber siding on the addition to the original log cabin.

From left to right: the smokehouse; the granary; and the house.

The next property, the Tipton Place (#16 on the map), has a two-story house built after the Civil War by Hamp Tipton, a veteran of the war.  For some reason, I didn’t go inside, so I can’t be sure if it was a log cabin converted to a framed house.  From the outside it certainly looked like the latter.  In 1878, the house was rented to a newcomer who was strongly embraced by the community — a blacksmith (also a carpenter and coffin maker) whose skills supplied “a long needed want.”  He added a blacksmith shop onto the back of the house.

The Tipton house, as well as the smokehouse (far left) ,and the corn crib and
cantilever barn (replica) across the road.

McCauley added the blacksmith shop to the house.  Behind the structure is an open shed called an apiary or “bee gum stand.”  It sheltered the bee hives from the elements, but not from the bears.

The double pen corn crib is larger than the average size seen on pioneer farms.

Built in 1968, this replica cantilever barn is similar to the one that once stood here.

In all honesty, by the time we arrived at the Carter Shields Cabin, we were a bit ‘heritaged out’.  That our tummies were starting to grumble probably had something to do with our lack of interest as well.  So, we made a quick stop, but didn’t explore the cabin where George Washington “Carter” Shields, a veteran crippled in the Battle of Shiloh, lived for 11 years (1910-1921).

From all accounts, this site is especially lovely when the dogwoods are blooming.

Oddly enough, after taking the Sparks Lane shortcut from here to hike to another heritage site for a picnic lunch, we changed our plans and returned to this peaceful spot for our midday repast (post here).  By then, the cyclist I mentioned in the linked post was camped out behind the cabin.  Not wanting to disturb him, we never did go back to the cabin to explore it.

I have one more thing to add about our visit to the heritage sites, but I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I’ll post my rant separately.  Hint: it doesn’t have to do with wildlife.

Cades Cove Heritage Sites (Part II): Cable Mill Area

Thursday, 19 April

I mentioned before that the Cades Cove Loop is open to one-way traffic only.  What that means is that if you dally along the way, the heritage sites along the top half of the loop are over-crowded by the time you get to them.  So, we devised a plan to explore the sites along the bottom of the loop in a piece-meal fashion the first couple of days (post here), and make a special trip for the rest on another day when we’d drive pretty much straight through.  Of course, that meant being at the gate to the loop at sunrise to be amongst the first on the road, but it paid off.  We reached the Cable Mill Area just before 8:00a, and had the site entirely to ourselves for the first hour we were there.

Cades Cove Map scanned from the Auto Tour booklet; the Cable Mill area, which is
the focus of this post, is circled in blue.

The Cable Mill Historic Area is probably the most visited section of the loop.  This is partly because there is a visitor center here.  Mostly, however, it’s because in this complex one finds a gristmill that is original to the area and a collection of buildings that were brought here from other parts of the park and reassembled to create a microcosm of the early 1800s pioneer culture that the NPS aims to preserve.

Detail drawing of the Cable Mill Historic Area.
[scanned from the cades cove auto tour booklet]

After looking through my photos of this area, I found that I liked them best in B&W.  Partially, because the sunlight streaming through the heavy canopy created very contrasty light conditions for photos; and partially because this treatment seemed to fit the mood of the area better.  So here we go — a virtual trip in B&W …

Welcome to the Cable Mill Historic Area!

If there was one essential staple in the life of early pioneers, it was corn.  It was a dependable grain, and it fed not just people, but livestock as well.  And it could also be used to make a potent beverage!  Though single family tub mills were numerous in the Smokies, they weren’t very efficient, grinding no more than a bushel of corn a day.  Enterprising farmers would sometimes build a mill powered by a waterwheel and charge other families for grinding their corn.  Though the form of payment was sometimes cash, more often it was a portion of the ground flour or meal.  Most of the mill owners were farmers, and milling was a part time occupation for them.  The mill would be open during specific hours/days, and if a customer arrived outside those hours, they could ring a bell to summon the miller.

(John Cable used the waterwheel to also power a sawmill, which was instrumental in the change from building log homes to building lumber and frame homes.)

Built in 1868, Cable Mill was one of the few mills that served the 700 residents of Cades Cove.

Cable Mill doesn’t open to the public until 9:00a, but Miller Bobby was kind enough to chat with us as he prepared the mill for its daily operation.  As he walked down to the wheel to grease the gears, he explained that a bear had figured out how to remove the gear cover so that it could lick off the fat.  “Yesterday, the rangers used mechanical grease to discourage the bear; we’ll see if he comes back tonight,” he told us.  Then, slathering on a thick layer of animal fat, which is what millers of old would have used to grease the gears, he replaced the cover the bear had removed.  I can just picture the bear’s reaction to getting a mouthful of less-than yummy mechanical grease.

Miller Bobby graciously poses for a photo op.

Leading us inside, Miller Bobby then gave us a sneak peek into the rest of the operation.  We watched as he meticulously checked gears, made sure the hoop around the grinding stones was set right, and put some corn in the hopper to do a test run of the grinding stones.  “Sometimes, I have to prod it a little,” he said, as he gave the gear shaft under the platform a gentle shove with a stick.  And sure enough, a trickle of corn meal started coming down the chute soon after.

Miller Bobby gets the mill ready for visitors.

Thanking Miller Bobby, we set out to explore the rest of the buildings in the complex, which is surrounded by a snake rail fence.  Speaking of those slithery creatures, there was a sign near the entrance warning visitors that snakes are active around the buildings.  You can be sure that I was extra cautious about where I went and what I did, and there was no rolling around on the ground like I often do when I’m photographing things of interest :-)

Our first stop after the mill was the Gregg-Cable House; it’s one of the structures brought here from elsewhere in the park.  Constructed in 1879 from lumber that Leason Gregg purchased from John Cable’s sawmill, the house is named for its original builder and its subsequent owner — “Aunt” Becky Cable, daughter of John Cable.  By all accounts, she was a remarkable woman, helping her brother manage his store, opening her house to family boarders, farming her land, and caring for her brother’s orphaned children.  She lived in the house until she died in 1940 at the age of 96.

The Gregg-Cable House may well have been the first framed house in Cades Cove.

After living in log cabins, a framed house such as this one was what most people aspired to build.  Those who couldn’t afford to build a framed home put up siding to hide the exterior of their log homes.

There were no furnishings to give visitors a sense of what the interior might have
Looked like back in the pioneer days.  (Center top image is a Historic photo of aunt Becky.)

Behind the house we found two more buildings that were reassembled here — the corn crib and the barn.  The corn crib was an essential structure on every mountain farm.  After the corn was harvested from the field, the unshucked cobs were dumped into this crib and left to air-dry so that the corn could later be ground into meal or used as chicken/livestock feed.

The slats were positioned with enough open space between them to provide
air circulation, but still keep the corn cobs from falling out.

The barn behind the house is one of two in this complex.  In fact, farms of the time — especially if more than one generation lived on them — often had more than one barn.

The drive-through design provided a protected place for farm equipment and animals.

Out in front of the house, we found two structures that were vaguely familiar.  One looked like a mill of sorts and the other looked to be a kiln or furnace of some kind.  It turns out that we were on the right track.  Miller Bobby, who was walking nearby, explained that the horse-driven mill was used to crush de-leafed cane stalks, and the resulting juice was then boiled down in the furnace to make sorghum molasses, a popular sweetener.

Sorghum mill and furnace; the two vertical rollers in the top section of the mill crushed the stalks of cane, and the juice was collected below.

Our next stop was the cantilever barn.  The design, which originated in Europe, allowed the second story of such barns to be larger than the base.  The loft was used to store hay and fodder, and the eaves afforded the animals, which were usually roaming about outside, a protective overhang when they wanted to get out of the rain or sun.  The eaves also sheltered any farm implements that were placed under them.

Logs extending out from the top of the cribs on either side support the second story.

Images from the cantilever barn show the pass-thru between the two cribs and some
of the farm implements placed under the eaves for protection from the elements.

Iron was an essential material in pioneer life.  As such, a blacksmith shop was very important to these mountain communities.  The blacksmith not only forged the tools needed on the farms, he made decorative items such as candlesticks as well.  He was often the one who shod the mules and horses, and repaired wheels.

Our last stop before leaving the complex was at the blacksmith shop, which is not an original structure; it was constructed as an example of a typical shop of the pioneer times.

The replica blacksmith shop and a surprise find — a wild hog trap.

Since it was very dark inside the blacksmith shop, and we could barely make out any of the details of what was stored there, we focused on the wild hog trap instead.  Wild hogs are considered “invaders to the circle of life” here.  They’re not endemic to the area.  European wild hogs were introduced into a private hunting preserve in North Carolina in 1912.  As one might expect, some of them escaped.  Prolific breeders that they are, they quickly formed wild populations throughout the GSMNP.

So what, one might ask; there are other wildlife populations in the park.  Well, the problem is that they are destructive to the natural ecosystem and they compete with native species for food.  Hence … the traps.  They are part of the feral hog management program implemented by the NPS to keep the non-native hog population in check and reduce the damage they cause.

The wild hog trap and information about why feral hogs are unwelcome in the park.

Having spent nearly 2½ hours in the Cable Mill area, it was time to move on to the remaining heritage sites on the loop, but that’s for part III of my missive.

Cades Cove Heritage Sites (Part I)

Thursday, 19 April

We combined our exploration of the heritage sites on the Cades Cove Loop with other activities, balancing history with hikes to see waterfalls, stops to smell wildflowers, and encounters with bears, deer, and wild turkeys.  No wonder it took us three days to visit the sites that rim the 11-mile (18 km) loop that, with few exceptions, is open only to one-way traffic!  This post covers the sites we explored along the bottom of the loop.

The blue box shows the general area of the Cades Cove Loop.
[map courtesy of the nps website]

Before the white settlers arrived in Cades Cove in the early 1800s, the valley was the hunting grounds of Native Americans.  In fact, the area was originally known as Kate’s Cove after the wife of an Indian Chief.  Although they were here for centuries, few signs of the Indians remain today.  Not so with the white settlers; signs of their lives can be found in the houses, churches, and mills they built; in the trees they planted; in the meadows that were once filled with crops; in the fences they put up and mended.  In fact, the paved road that takes visitors around the cove today pretty much follows the path of the wagon roads of old.

The signs of the white settlers’ lives are marked on this map from the
Cades Cove Loop Auto Tour Booklet.

There is a lot of history here and not nearly enough space for me to re-write what has been so ably documented by others.  So, I’ll leave you with a link that you can check out if you want to do more reading.  In the meantime, I’ll move onto a photo journal of our explorations.  Most of the information I’m relating is from the auto tour booklet (which I purchased for a $1 in 1994), supplemented with what I read on signage around the loop and on a few websites (like the one I linked above).

Our first stop was at the John Oliver Place (#3 on the map).  We parked the car in the closer of the two parking lots (not by design) and strolled the short trail through the open meadow where three deer provided us with plenty of photo ops.  I’ve been around deer before, and they’re usually very skittish.  Not this trio.  Obviously used to visitors, they tolerated our shutter-clicking and went about grazing upon the fresh spring grass.

Thanks for the memories, guys!

The Olivers lived on this land from the time they purchased it in 1826 until the Park was established in 1934.  Typical of the mid-1850s houses found on the eastern frontier, the cabin was constructed using techniques brought to the area by the descendants of European immigrants.  The cabin that stands on the grounds today is actually the one the Olivers built for their son to live in after he married.

A head count of 10-12 in this small cabin would not have been unusual.
There’s one room downstairs and one small room upstairs; No privacy, that’s for sure.

The notched corners of the logs required no pegs or nails; they were locked
together by gravity.  The outward slope of the logs allowed the water to drain away
from the notch, thus discouraging rot.  Chinks between the logs were filled with mud
to keep the wind and rain out.  to conserve energy and maintain the integrity of the
structure, Windows were small (in this case long and narrow), as were doors.
The stone chimney was laid in mud mortar.  3,000 handmade shakes covered the roof.

Religion was an important part of the settlers’ lives and several churches were built to meet their spiritual needs.

The Baptist church was organized in 1827 by some of the earliest settlers.  In 1839, a national dissension with regards to missionary work took its toll and the congregation was split.  Those who did not favor such work stayed with the original church and changed their name to the Primitive Baptist Church (#4 on the map).  Those who favored missionary work formed the Missionary Baptist Church (#7 on the map).

The congregation of the Primitive Baptist Church met in a log building until the
current structure was built in 1887. 

The graves in the cemetery at the Primitive Baptist Church hint at the lives that were
once a vibrant part of the valley.

We weren't the only visitors at the cemetery behind the Primitive Baptist Church;
there were a couple of wild turkeys scratching for seeds amongst the dry leaves,
but they were too far apart to get both in one shot.

The current Missionary Baptist Church dates from 1894.  At the time, there were 40
members of the church.  This number eventually rose to 115.
[P.S.  Another source dates the church to 1915.]

Scenes from inside the Missionary Baptist Church.
A stove would have stood on the spot where today there is a brick cross.
I’ve been unable to find any information on when and why the cross was placed there.

In between our stops at the two Baptist churches, we visited the Methodist Church (stop #5 on the map).  Organized in the 1820s, there were fewer members of this faith.  In fact, they had to rely on a circuit riding preacher for their services.  The Methodists weren’t immune to dissension either; in their case over the Civil War.  Today, there’s nothing but a cemetery left of Hopewell Methodist, the church that was formed by the dissidents.

According to the records, the current building, which replaced the original log cabin church, was built in 115 days for $115 by a carpenter/blacksmith named McCampbell.  He later became the preacher of the church.

symmetrical doors were a common feature of the churches of the area.  men entered through one door; women and children through the other.  they sat in pews separated by a divider, which was frustrating for courting couples.  That said, I saw no sign of a divider inside, so perhaps it’s true that the Cades Cove Methodists were more relaxed and sat where they pleased (as the linked website above says) and the double doors were just a design feature copied from another church.

Some of the many graves in the cemetery attached to the Methodist Church;
the number of infant graves speak to the high mortality rate.

I thought I could get all of the heritage sites into one post; I should have known better.  Consider this part one of two … or perhaps three.

Fauna, Flora, and Water

Monday, 16 April

After relaxing at home on Sunday (post here), we woke up to a warmer day that allowed us to eat breakfast on the deck.  Yay!  Though we were tempted to laze about again, we decided to take an exploratory drive into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, specifically the Cades Cove area.

We’re just two of the millions of people that will be visiting the park this year.
With a  visitor count of 8-10 million, the GSMNP is the most visited national park in the US.

The drive from the Townsend Entrance to Cades Cove is 9 miles (14 km) of two-way, single lane traffic.  At this time of the year, we’re finding that vehicles are few and far between — except in the 11-mile (18) Cades Cove Loop.

The 20 mph (32 km/h) speed limit on the loop — 35 mph [56 km/h] elsewhere — and the curvy single lane road forces even those visitors who would like to whiz through the park to slow down and take it easy.  And if there is a wildlife traffic jam, then all bets are off — you’re not going to get anywhere fast.

But to really enjoy the park, one must stop and get out of the car.  There’s plenty of entertainment along the way — gurgling creeks and rivers; rapids and waterfalls; colorful wild flowers; birds, and bees, and butterflies; deer, elk, wild turkey, and everyone’s favorite — the American black bear.  Add to that the many, many hiking trails and you’re not lacking for things to see and do.

So, slow down we did.  In fact, we made so many stops and spent so much time at each spot that we only had time to see a few of the historic buildings on the Cades Cove Loop.  I’m going to leave the heritage sites for a separate post after we’ve completed exploring all of them, and focus on everything else that made up our day.

Here’s our story in pictures …

Just inside the Townsend entrance to the park, we make our first stop.

these waterfalls are easily viewed from the road; But that wasn’t good enough for us.
Scrambling over the rocks, we found this perfect spot to view the falls.

A short trail just before the tunnel gives us our first glimpse of wild flowers.
top:  Creeping Phlox; Bottom: daisy Fleabane.
[do correct me if I am wrong on any of the flower identifications.]

I was especially intrigued with this flower, which I believe is a Foamflower.

A close encounter with a millipede (aka thousand-legged worm) provides ample entertainment.

a White-tailed deer encounter during our short walk to the John Oliver Place.

Here’s your chance to see the very rare two-headed white-tailed deer (top left).
Just kidding, but the positioning of the two deer couldn’t have been more perfect.
the trio featured here were right next to the path and weren’t fazed in the least
by visitors walking to the john Oliver place.

Left: On the trail from the John Oliver Place to the parking lot.
Right: Mui with his trophy ‘ginormous millipede kill’ — that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The lens needed to capture the wide open expanses has yet to be invented.
this is just a tiny portion of the meadow near the john oliver place.

We were alerted to this American black bear sow by a number of cars parked in
every possible spot along the road.  This bear was in a densely wooded area with lots
of branches and shrubs in the way.  She could have cared less about our presence …

… even though she had a yearling cub (top right) foraging a short distance from where she was ‘pretend-napping’.  The photos I managed to get may not be great, but they’re good enough.
After all, unlike some of the other visitors we witnessed approaching closer than was wise,
I had no desire to test mum’s patience and become bear bait.

You can see wild turkeys just about anywhere in the park.  This one  was one of two
that happened to be  foraging in the wooded area behind the cemetery at the Primitive
Baptist Church, another heritage site on the Cades Cove Loop.

Our second ‘close encounter’ with a black bear was after we exited the Cades Cove Loop.
Foraging for berries in a wooded patch below the road, this young adult was more
cooperative  in terms of providing us with a good photo op.

The ranger on crowd control duty at this bear jam told us that the national
Park service estimates the GSMNP black bear population to be around 1,500.

And on that note, we decided to call it an early day and return home to enjoy our campsite.  Comfy chairs placed near the railing behind the coach, we sat down to read, and in my case, process photos.  I didn’t make any headway :-) … hence the teaser post ;-)

I hope it was worth the wait.