Thursday, April 30, 2015

April 30 – To Cherokee, North Carolina

Yesterday was another inside day as it was rather grey and rainy.

We drove across the Newfound Gap Road to the southern / eastern side of Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  It meant a climb of about 4000 feet in elevation over 10 miles for the RV and then a long coast down the other side. There are lots of pullouts on the way up so whenever someone had been following for too long I just let them by.

We stopped at the lookout at the actual Newfound Gap. Since we couldn’t checkin to our next campground until after 1 pm and the trip was too short by the time we had to leave our old one, we just spent some extra time here.

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Something doesn’t belong here.

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We actually did see two other RVs chugging their way up from the other side.

The Appalachian Trail runs through the parking lot, We are 200 miles from the start and almost 2000 miles to the end.

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A local church had a van set up in the parking lot giving out free snacks to the thru hikers. I had read that the hikers call this “trail magic”. It seems to happen at a lot of places that the trail pops out near civilization. Some people offer food, other give rides into town. 

The view to the east. We bundled up because there was a cool wind blowing.

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We are now parked at the Flaming Arrow Campground just outside of Cherokee, North Carolina.

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It looks like a nice place. About half the sites seem to be seasonal.

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I don’t think the pool is quite ready for use yet.

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We will be here for a week.

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