Clingman’s Dome, Tennessee, the Mysterious High Point

I am doing this without a paper map.  First time ever.  I am now a cell phone tower addict.  If I can’t get bars, I can’t get anywhere.  Last night I jotted down a few directions, and really, they worked to perfection.  We got to highpoints 1 and 2 with no problem whatsoever.  Highpoint 3, Clingman’s Dome, is smack in the middle of The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  I google mapped it and along we went to Cherokee, North Carolina. 

Indian dancers, indian jewelry, indian wrestling, indian curios, indian souvenirs, indian casinos.  Ugh. And Santa’s Land.  Double ugh. Not a shred of decency or dignity but they’re making money hand over fist.  The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  The Cherokee forefathers must be spinning in their graves.  Or maybe writhing in envy at all the dough.  Blessed be the rear view mirror in which Cherokee fades into the distance.

The Tennessee High Point is the most visited of all 50 state high points.  At Taum Sauk Mountain, Missouri, not a car in the parking lot.  Here, it looked like Yosemite Valley on the Fourth of July.  License plates: Quebec, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, California, Iowa, and a good many others.  It reminded me of the license plate menagerie in the Disneyland Parking Lot.  Languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Hillbilly.  That last one is completely inscrutable to all but the most PhD’d Linguist. 

We were somewhat mystified by the crowds.  Sure, the view is spectacular.  Sure, it’s smack dab in the middle of the only really great national park on the eastern seaboard.  Sure, it’s within a few hours of a lot of people, but really… most visited?  I guess the climb up Denali scares off a few folks. 

At the north entrance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Remember everything I said about Cherokee, North Carolina that you were vaguely or not so vaguely offended at?  Gatlinburg.  Worse.  Everything touristy.  Tourist shops of every description.  Every kind of restaurant, every possible theming of hotels from Bavarian to Beaver.  Triple ugh. 

Yet, Google Maps said we are four and a half hours from the highest point in Kentucky.  Yikes.  Who said it would take 11 hours to do all four?  Google Maps, that’s who.  Minus the stops, of course.  Now it says we would not arrive until after 10 PM, an odyssey of 14 hours, and an arrival in the depths of coal mining country, at a reportedly bleak high point.  We strike this one off the list, settle for a comfy hotel in tourist perdition, and order pizza and salad.  It was a really, really, great day.

Tomorrow we head for Bellefontaine, Ohio and Campbell Hill.  We will head in the direction of Home from there!