Asheville & The Great Smoky Mountains
After a very relaxing night of sleep in my $40 single room…ridiculous…I gathered my belongings and headed towards the checkout to drop off my key and inquire about my next stop…the Great Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Highway and my best route to get to DC. I was told by the man behind the desk that the drive to the park was an hour away, which seemed reasonable. I didn’t know much about the Blue Ridge Highway, other than LP suggested taking it to get to DC, but once I suggested taking this route to DC the hostel’s sole employee looked at me as if I had lost my mind. The drive to DC was 500 miles and if I wanted to take the Blue Ridge Highway I should expect the trip to take twice as long. This seemed kind of ridiculous to me however I was told that scenic drives through mountain ranges had speed limits of about 35-50 miles per hour, and if I wanted to test these limits I’d be seriously placing my safety at risk since one wrong turn or slip could lead me over the side of a mountain. I thanked the attendant and jumped in my car with the Great Smoky Mountains on my mind.
I remember singing a song in elementary school about a “Great Smoky Meatball,” and how it rolled around mountains and increased its size exponentially, or maybe it decreased in size, I forget. The one thing I do remember was how disgusted and intrigued I was that a meatball could roll through a mountain range without any assistance and accumulate tons of gunk and crap and still be considered a meatball. The other thought I had on my drive to the park was the thought of smoky mountains. The Park and the mountain range seemed really exciting and was psyched to check out the park, but before I arrived at the Park I wanted to check out the Biltmore Estate.
The Biltmore Estate is America’s largest private house, and was built by the Vanderbilt family as a holiday home. I thought it’d be really cool to see the largest house in America and thought it’d be a necessary detour en route to The Great Smoky Mountains. I stopped in at a McDonald’s for some pancakes..for some reason I love their pancakes…and drove to the House. When you enter the Estate you feel like you’re entering the woods, and I felt that it was bizarre and inconceivable that someone could have enough money to own a piece of property of its magnitude. After a few minutes of swerving through roads that seemed to be leading me to the house I was directed by signs and a large gate to enter this parking lot to purchase a ticket of admission to the estate. I thought that I could put down $20 or so to examine the property and the house, but was astonished and infuriated when I saw that tickets were being sold for $45. I couldn’t think of any reason to put that type of money down for this thing, and couldn’t imagine the estate being more beautiful than Versailles in France, where I got in for free…I left the ticket office after asking if they had any student discounts and was told that I could only get in for $45, and I couldn’t even see the entire estate unless I spent $60. I left the Biltmore Estate swearing I’d never pay that price even if I ended up making millions of dollars, and thought that if I did have millions of dollars and constructed the Schisgall Estate, which would definitely surpass the Biltmore in size and magnificence, I’d charge a measly $44 to see the house and $59 to see everything sucking all the tourists away from the Biltmore Estate and its overpriced admission.
I had read that The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was America’s most visited National Park and as I entered the Park I could totally imagine why. The Park is extremely large and magnificently beautiful. You’re surrounded by beautiful green mountains, but the most intriguing part of this part of the Appalachian Range is that the clouds cover the peaks of the mountains, and you can understand the logic behind the name of the Park. On my way to the Park I was a little skeptical of what I’d see because there was a town filled with tourist shops and attractions that made everything seem so tacky and fake, and I was worried that the Park itself would be harmed by its close proximity. I was very grateful that the park had managed to keep these Native American tourist traps outside of the Park.
I stopped at the visitor information building to figure out where the trails were located but was told I’d have to pay for a trail map, and thought this was foolish since trails are already marked. But the park ranger told me of a few trails I could walk in a few hours and off I went into the Great Smoky Mountains hoping that I could escape the craziness of the real world.
I parked my car at a campsite and quickly found a walking trail with a self-guided walk pamphlet which I picked up with much enthusiasm and started my walk in the woods. I crossed a small bridge crossing a creek and found myself in the heart of the woods without anyone or anything else in sight other than trees and the sounds of nature. I felt as if I was in paradise and couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a summer afternoon. I looked at the walking pamphlet and quickly realized that this walking tour wasn’t the same as the self-walking guides I was used to with “City Walks” and “Time Out.” The author was a lot more “green” and nature-conscious, which makes sense since I was walking along a nature trail but I got this strong sense of the author being anti-human due to their effects on nature, but it was strange for me to read something that was so PRO-NATURE. I’m definitely not saying that I’m not for nature…believe me, I love nature and parks, and trails, and natural beauty and green spaces as much as the next person, but I was somewhat distracted by the pamphlet because it seemed to have an agenda that I wasn’t interested in on my walk in the woods, but I continued to consult the pamphlet because it also provided some interesting points. After an hour or so I found myself near my car and I jumped in and drove back to the visitor center to find another walking trail. I was told that there was one nearby the center that ran along a river so I meandered towards the water, saw some artificial Native American village with written displays explaining how the Native Americans used to live in this region without many problems to deal with other than the occasional bear attack.
This second walk was also serene, but I bumped into other walkers and felt that I didn’t have this trail to myself, which was fine since I was kind of in a rush, but I would’ve preferred to have walked around by myself. At the end of the 2 miles I found myself at the edge of the park and near one of those tacky tourist areas so I quickly turned around and walked back to my car admiring the natural beauty of the park from a slightly different angle.
Even though I wanted to stay for a few days and explore all the trails in the Park I knew I had a long drive to DC, and couldn’t wait much longer since it was already close to three in the afternoon. I got in my car, stopped by a gas station to get directions to get on the Blue Ridge Highway, got an information pamphlet for the Highway with its highlights and hit the road again.
Tags: Summer 2007 Road Trip, Travel
