Carl Talks
(Saturday Traveling stories part 12)
Breaking camp today. Not fully ready to move on. I’ve enjoyed our time at this camp ground. It has had its drawbacks – no showers being the biggest one. The toilets were bearable. There was a sink outside we were able to use for getting wash water for the dishes and we also hauled some back to camp and heated it up so we could do something like a sponge bath.
I was reading some of my great grandmother’s diaries that my mom has kept. Not a lot of earth shattering or historical news in there. But one thing I found odd, until I gave it some thought, was how she would mention when someone washed their hair. Just a note on a day that would read something like, “Mable washed her hair today,” as if that was a major event worth noting.
But when you think about what that might entail – pumping water from a well or retrieving it from somewhere. Getting fire started to warm the water up. Getting all the things you need to make it happen; things like a big dish, towels, soap, etc. It’s a lot of work to get a hair washing in.
And being in a camp like the one we were in, I can relate, if just a little.
It didn’t take us all that long to break everything down and pack it up. We have a pretty organized system going on.
We said our goodbyes to Alex, Sunny, Theodore, and Oliver. I found out that Sunny and I both went to school in Brighton, Colorado. Decades apart, of course. And as was said on Seinfeld, “It was a big coincidence,” but, “there are no big coincidences, just coincidences.”
Once we pulled out it was time to make a decision what we were going to do next. We kicked around three or four scenarios all week and never came to any kind of definitive answer. As we were pulling away we agreed to go to Gatlinburg. That is not usually our kind of thing, but we were close and we thought we might as well.
We drove through the main drag, lots of people everywhere. Lots of touristy stuff everywhere. I needed gas. Not many gas stations anywhere. I pulled into the first one I came across. Oh My! They saw me coming. 3.99 a gallon. While I was filling up Carl (I don’t know if he spells it with a C or a K because I didn’t think to ask), who had been sitting on the concrete ledge in the front of the store sipping on a cup of coffee, got up and sauntered around the back of my truck looking it up and down.
Carl was wearing a dirty and sweat stained straw fedora. He was about 5 foot 6 and average build with a beard that was well matched to his fedora. I looked over, smiled, and said, “How ya doin?”
“Good good.”
He continued…
“About 30 years ago, I came to visit from Florida and I just never went back. I love these mountains. You know sometimes you will see a black bear just walking right up that road there. That’s why they have to bear proof all the trash cans. Florida is just too hot. And the hurricanes. Back in 65 we had Donna go right through Orlando. The eye was 50 miles wide. You know when the leading edge passed over the sun came out, the sky was clear, the birds were singing, and then the back side hit, and it hit hard. No,” he paused and looked a little upward as if in deep thought, choosing between contentment and regret, and then continued, “I never want to go back to Florida. Sure, that road there,” he pointed behind me, “is impossible to drive when it snows, but then again it doesn’t snow that often.”
I finished fueling. Putting out my hand to shake Carl’s, “Carl, I sure appreciate you talking to me like that. Made me feel good to meet someone like you.”
Carl shook my hand. “Well, you know I do like talking to people.”
We drove to an area that Tiffany Mitchell recommended. It is a loop for arts and craftsman type of stuff. We looked around a bit. A lady in a pottery store noticed my shoes. “Going hiking?” I think the way to sell almost any persona is to look the part. I bought some Altra hiking shoes a while back because I need the wide toe box and they were on clearance and nothing else works all that well for my old feet. And apparently if you wear them they give you the air of a hiking specialist.
“We were over in the Smokies by Cades Cove,” I replied, not wanting to make her think I’m a real hiker, but also not wanting to make her think I’m not. I’d leave that to her discernment and imagination.
“I love Cades Cove. I wish I could go more often. I have some elderly friends that go every week and run that loop. I have done it with them a couple of times but it takes so long to get there and back and I don’t really have the time. They are retired. One couple is around 80 and they still go every week. I try to get my husband to go hiking with me but he is a lineman and he has to climb those mountains all the time and doesn’t want to do it for enjoyment.”
We left the pottery store and made the decision that we had seen all of Gatlinburg we wanted to see. But I did enjoy the conversations.
