The Cumberland Gap

I beheld the Gap and the surrounding land and it was good, very good; until I talked to an inhabitant and learned the Gap used to be US-25.  I guess that’s not so strange considering it  started out as a game and then Indian trail.  Indians sold it to a man who hired Daniel Boone to blaze a trail through the Gap into the area that is now Kentucky.  Foot traffic became so heavy some businessmen built a toll road wide enough for two wagons to pass.  The slope from toll-road to US-road is small.

Looking into Kentucky from the Gap on the Wilderness Road

Looking into Tennessee at Tri-State Peak

The Gap is .3 miles from remains of an iron furnace.  How could anyone pass up the chance to stand at the very Gap that led to, ultimately, my state becoming settled?  I made it to the Gap. A half-mile total isn’t much even if it’s the first real walking I’ve done in a couple of months.  

Unfortunately the Tri-State Peak Trail starts at the Gap.  Heck, I’d been to Four-Corners so this is seems like a should-see location.  Peak is a key word here, along with no idea how far; this is a  bad combination.  And the steeper parts of the trail just happened to be covered with a thin layer of snow that had become soft and greasy as the day warmed.  Way too many steps later I arrived at a nice litter gazebo, sheltering the joining of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.  In spite of aching muscles I am glad I made the trip.  

A snack and a couple of stops later I returned to Scout thinking about my afternoon.  I sleep in Virginia at the Cumberland Gap Campground, I bought my beer in the town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.  Since there are no groceries in that town, I drove into Middlesboro, Kentucky to buy food.  No wonder I’ve been confused over which state I’ve been in.

If state confusion wasn’t enough, the people I’ve talked to are lots like the folks I talked to in New Mexico; nearly all the ones I’ve met have started out someplace else.  The Cumberland Gap shopkeeper did grow up in Kentucky so she may not count even though she lived in Florida for a dozen years. She and her family returned to the area so their kids could get a better education than they could in Florida where most of the other kids don’t even know English.  Education can be obtuse; the mother works in a half-full store called a market that only sells beer, pop and candy.

The Long Drive

What with tending to this and that, I did not leave on another jaunt until Feb. 8.  As youngson (who helped me get Scout out of the alley and onto the road) said, “there were a few snowballs”, however they all worked out and I headed off into the snowy yonder.

Originally, I was heading south until I hit 50/20 kinds of temperatures.  Well, weather being what it is, I decided 4foot drifts in Missouri was off-putting so I rapidly revised direction.  It looked like, if I stayed on schedule, I could miss all kinds of weather fronts by heading through Iowa, across Illinois and Indiana and then down Kentucky to a place called Cumberland Gap Historic Park on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. 

Schedule was fouled before I left the cities. Snowballs, snowballs, snowballs; all part of the adventure.  Enough to say I am now much wiser on how new trailer brakes work and what I need to heed in the future.  Roads were clear, wind was minor and I headed south into the depths of Iowa with Davenport as my evening goal.  I gave up about 100 miles short and spent a short night in a roadside rest stop.  It was more like a holding pen for trucks however the rumble of engines could be mellowed into very loud cat purring.  Since a sign said no overnight stays of any kind, I slept in the back seat of the car.  My winter-weight down sleeping bag kept me toasty warm and I slept until cramping legs and a crabby bladder roused me.

Although it was only 4am, I was awake and the road was empty.  Second night’s stop was Indianapolis so I hit the road.  Davenport breezed by however I did note that both motels and gas seemed to be very reasonable.  Illinois swept by and I reached Indianapolis by early afternoon.  Last I checked, a weather front was to sweep up from Missouri and hit the area with rain and snow about suppertime.  It made sense to keep going.  If I could drive pass the front, so much the better.  On I went; clipped a corner of Ohio near Cincinnati and turned south into Kentucky. 

The cloud cover darkened a bit and I saw a flake or two of snow as I approached Lexington just before rush hour.  Hah, I had been smart to keep going.  Now I was on the southern edge of the front and the rest of my drive would be a piece of cake.  Not!  First, I had crossed a time zone and it was rush hour.  Second, the front was sweeping through Kentucky, not Indiana.  Local traffic reports mentioned several accidents and I saw many more that did not involve tow trucks.  While I continued to move south, at 2 miles an hour, I put in a call to the girl-child.  Look up the weather for southern Kentucky I asked.  Back came reports of continued snow and maybe rain, while the radio told me county after county was shutting down.  Snowplows went by spreading salt and scraping not much off the roadway.  Cars turned off the freeway and speed picked up.  More cars left and then the semis were gone.  Eventually me and an occasional vehicle were all that was moving south while a steady stream of semis continued to roll north.

My exit came and I crept down a snow-covered ramp onto a snowier US highway.  The highway ducks under the interstate and then goes by a fair-sized town.  Two stoplights and two hills later I called it quits.  There was ice under an inch or so of fresh snow and I had no traction.  A well-lit grocery-gas-strip mall was a short slid away. An ample employee parking area provided me with parking and I curled into my sleeping bag for another night.  This time I tried the front seat and immediately fell asleep even though it was only 9ish.  A few hours later strange protrusions woke me and I crawled into the back seat for the rest of the night.

Daylight and sanding trucks gave a new view to the world.  I was only an hour or two from my destination so we started on our last leg of the long drive.  Everywhere is hilly, at least here.  I saw houses perched above the road and others set well below it.  If other drivers have traction trouble as I did, and there was no plowing of off-roads, I began to understand why entire counties shut down.  Road cuts look to be through shale or some other rock that lays in clay-color bands.  All the cuts had water coming out of the rock.  On the north faces they were frozen into dozens of mini-waterfalls.  Everywhere I looked was like a christmas card; evergreens had just enough snow, the ground was covered though not oppressed with white stuff, houses were nestled in trees with trails of smoke coming out of their chimneys and there were horses behind log fences.

I turned onto the campground road of bumpy ice.  Fortunately the uneven surface gave me enough traction to make it up and down a couple of smallish hills and into the camping ground.  In here, the road looked clear, a little snow but not slippery to walk.  I confidently started down the one open loop looking for a level spot that would be close to the toilet.  There was enough snow that I couldn’t see the edges of the trailer pad at several sites so I kept going to the end of the loop and started back.  Unfortunately, the way back is slightly down and then up hill.  I tried 2 spots before I found one I could actually back into without sliding off. 

Two hours later most of the snow is gone and I could move to practically any campsite.  However, Scout is resting well and gradually warming up.  I’ve had a hot breakfast, poked my head into the spacious heated shower room, tried the toilets and filled my water jugs.  We aren’t going any place for awhile.

Cumberland Gap campsite

Playing in the Northland

Bad news was Minnesota had more snow during December than it had for the last 40 years.  Good news is I like snow.  Yup, I shovel it, watch it fall and play in it.

Over Christmas break, when I visited my daughter and her family, we went cross-country skiing.  It’s been years since I’ve gone and the kids never had.  There was the usual getting skis and kids locked together, lost mittens and debates about trails.  Ski bindings have changed since the last time I went out and I too needed some help figuring out to fasten ski and shoe together.  Fortunately it was warm enough no one became too cold waiting, or working without mittens.  The kids picked up how to ski really fast.  It was so much fun some of us went out again the next day.

It was so much fun, I visited my storage locker to dig out my snow shoes.  There is no similarity between snow shoeing and cross-country skiing, except the snow of course.  Still, I have one and not the other so the remainder of my time in Minnesota will include regular bouts of snow stomping.  Woo-hoo winter!

Time for the Holidays

I am back in Minnesota flagrantly sponging off of friends and family for the month of December.  Current plans are to hit the road again in January.  Anyone reading this, take care of yourself.

A Sad Evening

I went to a social on the plaza of Socorro this evening as part of the Festival of Cranes.  Everyone who was there was an old fart so the band was playing old fart music.  I so wanted to be dancing with a woman in my arms that I left.  Now I’m sitting in Scout with a beer instead of a babe; at least Scout in gender neutral.

Scout

I’m sitting here in Scout listening to the wind sigh through the ponderosa pine that nearly hide one trailer from another.  Supper, a pot roast, is simmering away on the hotplate while I work on my computer.  The temperature always drops quite sharply when the sum sets.  Tonight the temperature doesn’t matter because my very small ceramic heater keeps Scout warm enough to be comfortable.

Night temperatures have been in the high to mid twenties for a few weeks so tonight’s temperature is not unusually cold.  High twenties aren’t so bad, especially if I have picked my site well and get early morning sun, Scout warms up as fast as it cools off.  After a half-hour of sunshine it feels warm and after an hour of sunshine and breakfast cooking heat its quite comfortable.

Let the temperature drop just a few more degrees and I don’t like it at all.  Even putting warm feet into cold shoes doesn’t help.  At 25 degrees, I creak when I first start moving and the toilet is always too far away.  So, I moved to a place with electricity. 

Scout is not cold proof.  Oh, it has insulation in the walls that works well at reasonable temperatures however I can see light where wall meets slant.  Now that it’s colder, those cracks also leak lots of chilly air.  At the table side its doesn’t matter so much, however when I sleep, I like to sleep cool so the heater is off and those leaks are inches from both my neck and my feet.  What to do, what to do. 

While shopping at my least favorite national chain store I found a package of four foam pipe wraps that just happen to be a very good size for fitting into those pesky cracks.  An extra bench cushion fits well against the outer wall I occasionally bump in my sleep.  Voila! Warm as toast.

With the 12v lights not working, I became creative with that problem too though it took a few tries.  One or two candles add a nice glow to the inside and are bright enough to read by, however it’s difficult to see into a pot so I used a flashlight for that.  Unfortunately holding a flashlight puts it too close to the pot and I mostly saw steam, like having your high beams on when its foggy.  Hanging the light would help, if I had a way to hang it.

Scout has some very sturdy looking levers that lock the sides to the top.  They also make very handy holders for light rods.  By light I mean light.  After a day of diligent searching I found two yucca seed stalks long enough to span wall-to-wall.  It was easy to find a shorter one that would reach across between the two rods.  And I have a yucca walking stick given to me after a New Mexico trip I couldn’t take.  It almost fits and I use it when I want a fourth rod. 

Hanging a flashlight over the pot works sort of, and the light, which is on a bit of cord, easily moves to over the table.  Even though it works, I wasn’t happy with it.  I tried the idea with a different kind of flashlight and it still wasn’t what I wanted.  The trailer guy suggested using a battery charger on my battery and then I would have lights.  Battery chargers are expensive and they take lots of space.  His suggestion did get me thinking about electric lights and I went through a home decor department where I found a very inexpensive clip-on light.  Again, success!  The clip easily fits my poles, the cord is long enough to move the light anyplace I want it and the light beam itself is clear and uniform.

Light, warm and a beautiful setting; now if I could just solve the problem of keeping a picture fastened to the wall ………..

Park Gossip

I’m in Manzano Mountains State Park, New Mexico.  The park is set in a hillside of ponderosa pine so the trees are usually whispering in the wind.  A weather front was coming the day I settled in however I didn’t need a weather person to confirm the front since I was aching.  Aching enough that I didn’t unhitch even though I paid for a couple of nights.

In the morning the wind picked up, the trees swayed and with every gust a show of old needles blew past my window.  It didn’t make me much difference as I sat at my computer editing photographs. Pretty soon I heard rain and it soon changed to snow.  It took most of the day for the front to blow through.  By the time I was feeling good, it was time for bed.

Day two was beautiful though too cool to be outside without a jacket even in the sunshine.  Usually the sun instantly warms everything by about 20 degrees however there was a wind blowing and the sunshine was just a bit cool.  I went for a walk along the nature trail that had numbered posts and no information and the trail brought me back to the campground in such a way that I could leisurely snoop out the other campers.

There are three of us here, myself, an rPod that I envy over and a large white tent of the type often used by outdoor vendors.  It appears to be attached to the mouth of a completely enclosed two-horse shaped trailer.   A young man was splitting firewood at the third trailer and we exchanged waves.
- - -
Its now several days later and I still have lots of curiosity about the other visitors.
- - -
Thank goodness for public toilets in parks.  My curiosity has finally been sated.  Today I met the people in the rPod and learned the white tent dwellers consist of a man and woman who live in the trailer full time and are traveling around.  The woman buys things at local shops and resells them on eBay.  Apparently she knows merchandise and has made some excellent finds.

There is a school bus that comes into the park at 7:32am and returns about 4:30pm.  The park ranger, who I had guessed to be retired and only working part-time, has a teenage son and the bus is for the boy.  That also explains why the ranger typically starts his day soon after the bus leaves.  He has an industrial strength golf cart type vehicle that the revs up and uses to drive around the campground usually twice.  I hope he’s working and not just making sure the campers are awake.

The rPod people are a couple who formerly lived in the state of Virginia and moved out to New Mexico in January.  Now they have a small condo in Albuquerque, and rPod and 130 acres not far from the park.

Pat offered to drive me out to their property, if I was interested in seeing it.  Well, I’ve been building an adobe house in my mind as I drive through some repetitious parts of the country so I jumped at the chance to see what they were doing and to pick up a little local information.

Some people are simply good at interfacing with where they live and Pat is one of them.   They have started acquiring the equipment they will need to live in the country so how to keep it safe when they are not always at the land became an issue.  Pat talked to the local sheriff and was told to buy a container and lock it up.  I’ve seen containers in yards, some with windows and doors added and I have wondered about them.  Most are rusty or still wear company markings and add to the general disarray of yards. There is a business in the area that sells containers.

Pat and George bought a used one which on their property and they are using.  While they await the arrival of the new one they also bought, they poured footings for the containers to rest on.  Each container will then be bolted to the footings and then they will have a shed roof built over their tops.  In the end, it will look like an old-fashioned corncrib with cribs on each side of a drive-through.

They also have a well, finding water was part of the buy-conditions.  George was building a frame for a solar panel to power the pump while Pat showed me around.  There are some interesting rock ledges begging for use and a small ravine loaded with rocks begging to be picked up.  We looked at the ruins of someone else’s dream, guessed to be from the 1920s. And I saw the spot they have decided for the house, maybe.  They are going to build a straw bale house.  Each of them attended building workshops and George helped another couple work on their house so he has some additional experience.

Building for this year is almost done.  Nights are in the lower twenties and they will be happy with finishing the storage shelter.  In the meantime, Pat is gathering materials for a mud and wattle shelter she is going to create.

On the drive back to my car I learned they had 14inches of snow last year and couldn’t even visit the land.  While no snow is predicted for next week, it is becoming colder.  Highs for next week are going to be in the mid-fifties.  Fortunately, I’m moving to a lower elevation tomorrow.