Our fourth stop on the trip had us
pumping the brakes a little bit and driving out to the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park for a night of camping. Saying goodbye to Savannah was tough, but we’ve
got a schedule to stick to, so tough decisions had to be made. Luckily, we
started the day off with complimentary waffles, so by 9:00 AM it was already a
good day.
We spent most of the day on country
roads, with a quick stop in Asheville, NC to walk around and look for any
commemorative spoons that were available to be had (which there weren’t for
some reason).
After we got into Cosby, Tennessee, we started looking for a market of some sort in order to buy hot dogs, since we have to buy perishable items as close to their time of use as possible. After stopping at several closed shops with prominently displayed OPEN signs, we stopped at a small shack with a few locals milling about outside and a sign that said GROCERIES. We asked the people outside, who were the proprietors, if they had any hot dogs, and it turned out that they didn’t sell any groceries there at all! Apparently they place little value in accurate signage in Cosby. The store owners convinced us to stay for a minute to try their recently cooked barbecued pork (served out of the window of the small, separate “kitchen” by a woman who had what appeared to be track-marks up her right arm), and they asked what we were up to for the night. They pointed out that since the campgrounds were federal property, we should make sure we weren’t up to anything illegal, then offered their backyard as a potential alternative. I’m pretty sure they were implying that we could do drugs with them (very likely meth). Suffice it to say, we turned down their offer and immediately left, seeing as we all knew how Deliverance turned out (and Wrong Turn, and The Hills Have Eyes, and Requiem for a Dream for that matter).
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| Leighton and Alex in Asheville |
After we got into Cosby, Tennessee, we started looking for a market of some sort in order to buy hot dogs, since we have to buy perishable items as close to their time of use as possible. After stopping at several closed shops with prominently displayed OPEN signs, we stopped at a small shack with a few locals milling about outside and a sign that said GROCERIES. We asked the people outside, who were the proprietors, if they had any hot dogs, and it turned out that they didn’t sell any groceries there at all! Apparently they place little value in accurate signage in Cosby. The store owners convinced us to stay for a minute to try their recently cooked barbecued pork (served out of the window of the small, separate “kitchen” by a woman who had what appeared to be track-marks up her right arm), and they asked what we were up to for the night. They pointed out that since the campgrounds were federal property, we should make sure we weren’t up to anything illegal, then offered their backyard as a potential alternative. I’m pretty sure they were implying that we could do drugs with them (very likely meth). Suffice it to say, we turned down their offer and immediately left, seeing as we all knew how Deliverance turned out (and Wrong Turn, and The Hills Have Eyes, and Requiem for a Dream for that matter).
After all that excitement, we drove around for a while, got
our hot dogs, and set up camp. Camping was fairly relaxing after our time in
the city, but we are still fairly inexperienced, as evidenced by the crunchy, undercooked rice we mixed with our chili (plus several secret ingredients). By the end of the trip we'll have a pretty sweet chili-and-rice recipe. As for the next stop, I’m excited to hit Nashville Saturday evening. -J
Don't forget that creepy movie were tha farmer turned all of the city folks who stayed at his motel into sausages!
ReplyDeleteHave fun in Nashville;maybe you'll get discovered.
GREAT decision, guys! PS...cook the rice before adding to chili.
ReplyDeleteYou should have went to the Bear Zoo near Cherokee we used to go to and got a western photo!
ReplyDelete