Kibitka Escape: Great Smoky Mountains National Park Part 1

18-19 August 2013

Our second day was another long driving day. We timed it to arrive for 12:30 Latin Mass in Nashville, Tennessee at Assumption Catholic Church, in the historic Germantown area. We were enormously impressed with the very elderly priest who said Mass and gave a no-holds-barred sermon. His pain was palpable--over the state of the Church, the papacy, and the failures of his fellow seminary graduates to stand up for the Faith. Of his class, he is the only one still living, and he asked us to pray for his deceased classmates. He also asked us to pray for the suffering Catholics and Christians of Egypt right now, who are the descendants of the Egyptian people who cared for the Holy Family when they hid from Herod during the Slaughter of the Innocents. The congregation at Assumption Catholic Church was predominately young families and the choir (all men) was excellent. You know a really good choir when they are not a distraction to the Mass but a suitable supplement.

As a prelude to the next paragraph, let me explain that Great Husband has a longstanding fear of librarians. He considers them “terrible profilers” and he is an innocent victim of their profiling. Even when he is well-behaved, he imagines they’re constantly keeping him under a watchful eye, and he is at all times at risk of incurring their wrath. Sooner or later a librarian will descend upon him, wearing a scowl, to tell him what rule he is violating.

Although we made tracks, we didn’t arrive in the Great Smoky Mountains until nearly dark. We had a reservation at Elkmont Campground, on a site that backs up to the stream called the Little River. It is an absolutely beautiful setting. What we didn’t know in advance was that the only place to get water for the camper was six miles away near the Sugarlands Visitor Center, and we did not enter the park from that direction. We were fortunate that we arrived with about a third of a tank from home. In the morning we found a spigot in this campground and were putting some more water into our tank when along came a stern park volunteer, materializing out of thin air. She was probably a former librarian. Somehow it is against the laws of Tennessee to get your water there at the water spigot. Great Husband was trying to distract the librarian with questions about the policy before finally getting around to turning off the water, but it didn’t work. She was savvy to his wily ways. So, be forewarned if you camp in this national park, fill your water tank on the way in. We did figure out that we can also get water right here in the campsite by repeatedly filling a cooking pot and pouring it into the side of our camper using a curled up plastic cutting “board” as a funnel. It’s one of the fun aspects of camping—finding solutions with whatever you have on hand. But beware of librarians.

Overnight there was a steady light rain. This morning we have enjoyed relaxing under our canopy to avoid the still-dripping trees, while sipping hot coffee and watching some kids swim in the cold water.