Again after Blue Ridge, we had Great Smoky Mountains NP. We stayed in Cherokee, NC which is on the Cherokee Reservation, which means Casino! That's the last time I'll use an exclamation point when I describe the Cherokee Casino... it wasn't that great. First of all, no alcohol in the casino. I mean I understand that alcohol and alcoholism are large issues on reservations... at the same time, it's a casino. I figure if you wanted to attract gamblers, you'd want to get them sauced... well I digress.
Another thing about the casino there... no actual cards. Everything was digital on the blackjack tables and the poker tables. It wasn't fun, I mean you can't even touch the cards at most places, but shout... it was lame.
Alright I guess I'd feel differently if I hadn't lost money, but still... I don't recommend the place.
So Great Smokies... Nice park, lots to do, different areas. The only thing that really held us back on the first couple of days was rain and wet roads. The park is almost totally tree covered, so not a lot sun gets down to evaporate the roads.
We had a little more than a week to finish since we were planning on heading to Tulsa on Monday to check out our new truck (pretty exciting); I'll get to it in my next post. Towards the end of the week we were rushing. Then comes Friday morning... systems won't turn on. We figure out that it's one of our power inverters. An inverter basically takes the DC power that the alternators create and convert it to AC power that our computers can use. It's important needless to say. And important stuff isn't usually cheap or easy to find.
We called a place in MN that made the first inverter, explained the situation and told them we needed the inverter yesterday. After a lot of stress over credit cards, connections, remote power buttons, we got the thing Saturday morning in Gatlinburg, TN. Installed it with little problems, and started collecting. We had to drive the truck to Tulsa and be there by Tuesday morning, so we basically had to be done by Sunday afternoon.
After much stress we did it, not the greatest data as some of the roads were still wet. But we could still be there now and not be getting much better data. I think I still have some pics from the park. We saw lots of black bears (probably one a day) and even some elk (I didn't know they lived that far East). I didn't take that many pics though...
Hiked up to this waterfall when we were waiting for our inverter. Relaxed us slightly on a stressful day.
Here's a view from Newfound Gap... basically the NC/TN border. Busy up there, lots of motorcyclists... there was a rally every weekend. (Got old... fast)So that was GRSM... onto Tulsa then back to Denver (finally out of the South and the East coast). Nice, but getting called a "Yankee" at the casino was the final straw.
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