When Off The Trail

We don’t spend every minute of our lives on a trail somewhere although at times it may seem that we do.  We do intend to do a lot of hiking this summer and especially now while the weather is so nice.  So what have we been doing when not on a trail this week?

Maidenhair fern.

The first thing that comes to mind was Peanut’s vet appointment.  Oh my goodness, that didn’t go so well.  Peanut does his Jekyll and Hyde routine when it comes time to visit the vet.  He is such a sweet, loving, lap cat always wanting his head rubbed or to be held.  Walk through the door at the vet’s and the hissing, scratching, and biting begins and he refuses to let anyone, even Gene or I, to get near him.  Since he’s not afraid of strangers at home, I’m guessing it’s the smell at the vet’s office that triggers the change.  The vet finally had to just give him his shots through the mesh in his carrier and gave up on doing any examination.  I kinda think they didn’t want us to bring him back ever again.  They said they gave him a 3-year rabies and suggested that since he is a totally indoor cat that we could just skip the feline leukemia.  I don’t even know if there is such a thing as a 3-year rabies; the certificate says it expires next year.  Anyway, after we left the vet, he was perfectly fine in the car until he got car sick.  First he threw up in his carrier.  I got him out of there and put him on the floor by my feet.  He threw up again on the floor, then on me, then twice more on the floor.  I don’t know who was happier to get home, him or me.

Meadow Parsnip

While we were camped at Cades Cove, we were surprised to see friends from Nashville there.  They had brought the grandchildren up for a few days during spring break.  Our friends are hikers, but the grandchildren are small so they were busy with them--playing in the creek, horseback riding, and roasting hotdogs and smores. We stopped by their campsite a few times for short visits and enjoyed what little time we had.

False Solomon's Seal blooms at the end of the stem.

Smooth Solomon's Seal blooms under the leaves.

After we got settled at Misty River, we went into Maryville for grocery shopping.  While in town, we stopped by Target to do a little more investigating into the e-readers.  I let all that information roll around in my brain for a couple days and finally decided on the Kindle--just the basic reader; no color and no apps for me.  We went back today to make the purchase.  The time had come to either get it or forget it.  I’ve only have one other book to read of the large stack I got last fall, Wicked, and Gene is reading it right now.  Since I finished The Devil in the White City today, it was time to get over this analysis paralysis.

I really enjoyed The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.  It’s about what I always call the Chicago’s World’s Fair.  It’s official name was the World’s Columbian Exposition.  Larson tells the story of the trials and tribulations of the Fair’s primary architect, Daniel Burnham.  I was fascinated by the various aspects of putting together an event of this magnitude.  It was also interesting to read about some of the “firsts” showcased at this Fair with the Ferris wheel being the most notable.  Parallel to the primary story about the construction of the Fair was the true story of a mass murderer living in Chicago at the time.  He preyed on the young women coming alone to the “big city” to visit the Fair.  This story was incredible.  Much of my spare time this week has been reading this book.

Then there were the several hours Gene spent this morning hunting down yet another leak in the bathroom.  This time I noticed water in the floor between the shower and the sink cabinet.  We have finally come to the conclusion that over time water begins to run under the caulking and down the screw holes that fasten the shower enclosure to the shower base.  The whole inside of the shower has been caulked once, twice, maybe even three times, both by Gene and by the service techs at various RV dealerships.  After we shower, we always wipe down the inside in order to keep the water from evaporating and driving up the humidity inside our rig.  The caulking doesn’t stick all that great to the medal surface of the shower enclosure in the first place, so rubbing a sponge across it as often as we do pulls it away quickly.  Gene pulled off all the old and recaulked this afternoon.  We’ll see what happens.

Our plan is to leave Misty River in the morning and move around to the North Carolina side of the Park to the Cataloochee area.  For those of you familiar with the Park, you’ll know the road that leads to Cataloochee campground is not RV friendly.  People take their RVs down there and there is also a big horse camp there and those folks take those big horse trailers down that road, but you won’t find us doing that.  We’ll get a site in a commercial campground nearby.  Cataloochee looks like it’ll be a great place for hiking this week.  We may even see the elk.

That’s what we’ve been up to this week besides hiking.  Thanks for tagging along.