Big Bend - a land of contrasts

Big Bend - a land of contrasts

(in no particular order)

Relentless - see Sun, Harsh, Inhospitable

Photographer’s - Nightmare - because there are few places to pull over to take ‘that shot’ and ‘that shot’ and all ‘those shots’

Photographer’s - Delight - where there is a pullover, there is usually a fantastic photo op

Color - wildflowers, birds, cactus

Beautiful - see Ugly

Sky - blackest of black with the brightest of bright stars

       - the moon can be so bright it wakes you up

       - no lights in my campground except very weak and pointed to the ground  as in a “Night Sky City.”  Sodona and Flagstaff are Night Sky Cities and limit outdoor lighting and intensity of lights

       - this Park was known for its blue skies but now air pollution is coming in from outside the area to make it hazy

Vistas - scenic is not a big enough word

Life - plants and animals have adapted to a dry climate - for instance the thorns on cactus are really leaves

       - the javelina can eat cactus, thorns and all

Heat - 114 degrees yesterday at the Rio Grande Campground

         - May and June are ‘get out of town’ months

         - visitor centers at the two Rio Grande locations close during the summer

Altitude - Chisos campground at over 5000 feet is in the 60’s at night

             - water takes longer to boil particularly for my morning coffee

Respite - see Shade, any slice of shade

Osprey - the brand of my day pack with integrated water bladder can hold many liters of water - it is recommended to take a gallon of water per person  per a day of hiking

Trooper - my Prius

Desert - Chihuahuan

Wind - from a little to mostly constant to unsettling - because my tent is pitched on hard top I can not use stakes and must use rocks instead - but rocks can move so I have been forced to take the tent and tarp down twice - one night the tarp was flapping so I used small, but strong magnets to   hold it down in numerous places - the wind picked up and I started to hear the magnets popping off and landing back on the car

Sun - see Relentless

Mountains - the only national park encompassing a complete mountain range

Shade - see Respite

Loneliness - living on a ranch or working in a remote national park

Ugly - see Beautiful

Clean - not a place the masses visit - not trashed

Volcanic - no volcanoes or lava flows - molten rock from the earths core pushed its way into the spaces between the layers of underlying rocks and hardened - those underlying rocks were laid down when Texas was under shallow seas - erosion exposed the volcanic rock

I.C.E. - way too many patrols and stops located in this inhospitable land

Flood - the roads have the same flood signs and gauges as the Texas Hill Country

Unorganized - the landscape is a higgly piggly array of landscape features which seem to pop up helter skelter! - a butte here, a pillar there, a hill, a mountain, a fault, an escarpment, a flat land, spires, eroding tuff, a wash etc. - all in one place or spread out

Water - it is everything and nothing

My plans have changed. Heat and I do not get along well together.  Despite weeks of research and planning, I underestimated the heat I will encounter at lower elevations when I head farther west.  I also failed to take into consideration the remoteness of Guadalupe Mountains and what effect it will have on resupply and the need for ice.  As a  result I will spend less time at Guadalupe and head to Tucson to an Airbnb. Yes, Tucson will be hot, but I won’t be camping in it.

Today I went 66 miles roundtrip to take a 5 minute shower and do a load of laundry.  

Yesterday while hiking out to my favorite vista, The Windows, I found a running stream. The stream started up very close to where it forms a waterfall out of the Chisos Basin. I sat for a rest at the Windows and splashed water all over myself. I might as well have gone in for a soak I got myself so wet. On my hike out, my clothes started to stiffen up. I wondered what was in the water to create such a remarkable situation.  I stopped by today to ask a Ranger. Well, you would have thought I had stolen the Crown Jewels.  The Ranger informed me that the water was not for my use and I should not have indulged!

Me on the River Walk

Kayaking the river

River Walk

Roadside pink evening primrose

Looking back at a rapid on Guadaloupe

The Mexican Market

Just floating along

My little sit-on-top

River Walk

On the Guadaloupe

The Guadaloupe River from my campsite

The Alamo

Church of limestone

More River Walk

River Walk

"Road may flood" flood gauge

     Paddling the Upper Guadeloupe River is a sublime experience for a Sunday in April.  I have been camped for six nights near this crystal clear river as it winds its way south to the Gulf.  My campground is located north of San Antonio in the southern area of what is know as the Texas Hill Country.

     The country is green and beautiful with constant reminders poking out here and there of the underlying limestone. Limestone is used for building, from the tall buildings and the small Alamo in San Antonio to the ranch houses, churches, court houses, fence posts, gravel roads and entrance ways to the gated ranches.  Limestone is the basis for all of the building here.

     The Texas Hill Country is situated on the Edwards Plateau according to my physiography book which I bring along on all of my trips.  The plateau is over 100 million years old.  At one point most of Texas was under a shallow sea where sea shells and minute sea creatures laid down what became limestone.  Finally a surface bulge happened, pushed up from forces deep in the earth.  The Hill Country was uplifted. Then erosion by water carved these rolling hills much like what happened to form the Ozark's.

     I took a drive up to a scenic byway called the “Devil’s Backbone.” It was a circular route starting in a typical looking Texas town called Blanco.  I first stopped in Blanco for a delicious lunch at the Red Bud Cafe. The town square had a handsome limestone courthouse in its center. Around the four sides were small shops and antique stores.  There were numerous antique stores along the route also.

     This is grazing country for goats, sheep, cattle (longhorns and regular) and horses.  At one point the Hill Country was called the Mohair Capitol of the World.  Mohair comes from goats and was subsidized by the Federal Government. The ranchers had contracts from the government to produce mohair used in Army uniforms. As newer materials were introduced to make uniforms, the mohair industry lost its subsidies but continued as an important industry.  Every mile of the roadway is fenced with gates every few miles for the various ranches. It looks like a prosperous area and some enclaves are starting to be built as exclusive areas for homes.  The drive passed many ranches that presented like park lands.  Live oak trees predominated but there was no understory.  This intrigued me until I found out this was goat ranching territory and goats munch everything in sight up to the level their hind legs will take them. The cattle, sheep and horses benefit from the easy access to the open understory.  The ranches also do a thriving business during hunting season when they lease their land out for hunters. The income from hunting is probably more than from goats now.  The live oak trees prevalent are draped with millions of air plants which apparently don’t harm the trees.

     The back roads are well built and nicely paved but they have one idiosyncrasy that interested me.  Speed limits are from 45-65 mph and people drive fast here and there is nowhere to pull off as the roads are built without shoulders.  The roads are relatively flat but now and then dip dramatically.  Just before the dip is a sign which reads “Road may flood.”  Then before you can slow down the dip appears. At the bottom of the dip is a creek or a dry stream bed of an ephemeral stream.   Located at the bottom of the dip is a 6x6 post with a depth gage of up to 6 feet registered on it.  Apparently if you are a local and it is raining you know to slow down because storm surges build up rapidly and the roads flood regularly.  The streams become torrents.  The expense of putting in bridges for all of these features would be prohibitive!

     Geologically, when the bulge appeared a fault was created. The fault is called the Balcones Fault and runs for 400 some miles across the plateau.  The fault exposed numerous springs which feed the clear rivers. The Guadeloupe, Blanco and Medina Rivers all originate on the plateau. The rivers are clear and are lined by bald cypress which I first encountered in the wetlands along the Natchez Trace.  

     The drive to San Antonio was only about 45 minutes so I enjoyed a day in the city.  The historic Alamo, with its own park, is downtown and hunched down among the bigger buildings. The famed River Walk is also downtown. The river used to flood but flood gates were built and the banks of the river were formed into a park along both sides of the river.  Man-made canals have also been added to the River Walk and more are being built. The River Walk is sunken down below street level and is shaded by huge bald cypress.  There are shops and restaurants galore which have street level entrances but connect by stairs to the lower level in order to have a River Walk presence.  There are numerous access points to the River Walk and numerous arched pedestrian bridges span the river.  A river shuttle plies the river as do numerous narrated tour boats.  The day I was there was the start of a festival and the area was all a bustle. In addition to strolling and eating along the river walk I visited the Mexican Market.  The Market had two long buildings with a long courtyard in the middle. The courtyard was lined with food stalls offering up tacos and other Mexican foods plus huge turkey legs, funnel cakes and every kind of fruit juice and booze you could imagine. There was one drink which looked like a Bloody Mary but had the glass rim crusted with what looked like paprika. I did not try it!

     I had the tent camping area of the campground to myself until Friday night arrived.  Families piled out of twin cab pickups, the radios were cranked up to blare Spanish music and the volley ball games started. Kayaks and huge tubes arrived curtesy of the campground and the place became a huge summer picnic. I was surprised to see everyone swimming and splashing in the river. It is hard to imagine swimming in any river in April in the northeast! The campground rents the kayaks etc and runs pickups at 4, 8 and 14 mile locations.  I embarked on a 4 mile trip using a very small single person sit-on-top kayak. There were numerous small rapids and my little kayak was surprisingly responsive.  I am proud to say I negotiated the rapids quite well, remembering from my old canoeing days to locate the “V” in the current which signifies the “sweet spot” to enter the rapids.  Once set up with the sweet spot it is easy to steer through the rapids. I back paddle to go slower than the current. When doing rapids it is best to go either faster or slower than the current in order to have some steering control of the boat.  

     Having the river to myself was wonderful.  I could just let the current take me or just do a lazy paddle. The banks of the river were high and there were no buildings along the route.  My excursion took about two hours after which I was to call the campground for my shuttle ride back. My phone, however had lost its charge.  Luckily a family arrived at my take out point for a picnic along the river and I was able to use their phone. It was a glorious free sunny day.

     Traveling across Texas takes quite awhile. I drove west to Del Rio on the Rio Grande.  The route is basically flat with a small hill or two dotting the landscape. The road changed from four lane to two lane and at times had a 75 mph speed limit. I drove 150 miles and there was only one major town along the way.  Agriculture predominated until the town of Uvalde agriculture stopped and the landscape changed to a few trees with scrub. Ulvade is at about 100 degrees west and is at the expected limit of irrigated land in the west.  The homesteaders were lured to the western plains by several good years of rainfall.  Agriculture was good and over-planting ensued. Then the rains stopped.  The grasses covering the plains had deep stabilizing roots which went down over four feet but those grasslands were plowed up.  When the drouth hit, there was no grass to hold the soil so it became dust and blew away. Dust storms were seen as far away as Washington DC and New York. And so we had the Dust Bowl.  

     It has also been interesting to see the perfect grid pattern formed by the roads.  It is called the Section and Range System. Us geographers learn these things in cultural geography. The system stemmed from the US Public Land Survey System from back in the 1800’s.  A section is an area one square mile which contains 640 acres. That divided up into 36 sections makes a survey township.  When the US government was encouraging homesteaders they used the Section and Range System.  Sections were further broken up into quarter sections of 160 acres or a quarter-quarter which was 40 acres.  Apparently the smallest area of land that could be obtained was 40 acres. After the Civil War  there was a saying that freedmen could get ’40 acres and a mule.’  The road systems developed after the land was divided and ran along the section boundaries making a nice square road pattern that still exists today. 

     A mystery was solved for me on the ride to Del Rio.  Some ranches in the Hill country had extremely high fences and the same was true driving further west. Only some ranches had the high fences. Then it became clear when one ranch advertised for "trophy sized white tail." Ah ha. The high fences are to keep the deer in.  Us geographers also study things like the fact that white fences usually mean horses..........

     My next major stop after another day of driving will be Big Bend National Park. I will be there for a week and I am not sure there will be any wifi.  As a result I may go silent for awhile.

NOLA pictures

The live oak trees fascinate me. 

14 trees on each side shade 1/4 mile of walkway.

1/4 quarter miles at Oak Alley Plantation

the mansion of Oak Alley in the distance.

Creole Plantation which grew rice and indigo before the cotton gin was invented and then started growing cotton. It went from only 17 slaves to one that used over 100.

Cafe Du Monde is fameuse for its beignets.

This clarinet says everything there is to say about NOLA

The stern wheeler Natchez

Pictures of the Trace and Natchez

This the actual Old Trace. The soils underneath are so soft 

that the trail has sunk so deeply.

Rosedown was being built when the Civil War started and was never completed.

Inside Rosedown

Millions of bricks were hand made by slaves to form the walls. The craftsmen working on the inside were from Philadelphia. They went back north when the war started. Plus the money dried up. The family lived for 9 years in the basement which was the only level finished.

Inn Natchez I found this house with the intricate porch screen. It reminded me of the screen at Eagle Island Camp.

This was called the Gardens. It had a wonderful porch along the whole front of the porch.

It is hard to believe that a railroad went up onto this ridge but there was an old inn here which it must have serviced.

A lovely Japanese garden has been started at the park

A view from the tea house

The cypress and tupelo swamp on the Trace

The Natchez Trace Parkway

fields of lovely red clover on the Trace

Natchez and The Big Easy

     After two days driving the Trace, I stayed three nights at Natchez State Park.  Unlike most state parks I have encountered on my previous trips, this one had a shower.  Natchez was one of the first towns established along the Mississippi river in MS.  The town sits some 200 feet above the river on some bluffs, so has never flooded. The surrounding lowlands on both sides of the rivers were filled with plantations growing cotton.  The high spot with less fertile soil was left for the mansions.

     Twice a year THE Garden Club of Natchez runs tours of the antebellum mansions. Natchez is known for its mansions 90 % of which are still standing, because they were not burned by Grant during the Civil War. Apparently Natchez had nothing strategic for the war such as a railroad.  I had bought morning and afternoon tickets which allowed me to tour 6 homes.  I only toured five, and five was too many.  Natchez was a bust for me. I had a preconceived notion of the town. There are about 1000 buildings in town on the Register of Historic Places but it is a town which has seen better days. The mansions I saw are in terrible condition. In some, an owner greets her guests before the tour and describes the long line of relations who have owned and lived in the homes. None are in the hands of the original owners. The original owners all went belly up when the plantation system with its reliance on slaves ended. And I say 'good.'  I did, however, expect the current owners to have kept the buildings in good shape. But I don't think any, with the exception of one I saw have the were with all to pay even the taxes.

     I hate to say it but I think the Pilgrimage and everything associated with it is a relic from the past. Every single home I saw had a photograph of an occupant wearing a long white gown with a train, a crown on the head and holding a scepter. They all, at one point had been queen of the Garden Club's Ball.

     The one home I did enjoy touring was called the Gardens.  Every home has a famous name.  This one however, was owned by a radiologist and his wife who raised a family here. It was built in 1794 and built in the federalist style, although it was only a single story with very high ceilings.

     I was scheduled to see 5 mansions on the first day and 1 more on the next but I didn't bother. I spent the day reading a Nevada Barr novel.  Her protagonist is a woman who is in the law enforcement division of the National Park Service and her territory is the Natchez Trace Parkway. It was a great story because I had just driven on that part of the Trace. It was also a chance to just sit and relax. My neighbor camper and his wife invited me for dinner which was great.

     Driving to New Orleans was easy. It was on a divided highway with limited access but no interstate designation.  The KOA campground is only 12 miles from the French Quarter and the campground runs a free shuttle to and from the French Quarter. On Friday I couldn't get a space on the shuttle so decided to tour two antebellum sugar cane plantations.  Both were on River Road which runs along the levee between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The river was at near to flood stage but was never visible unless the levee was climbed. On the other side of the road was an intensely interesting amalgamation of what every town planner fears. I don't think there are any zoning laws. The land is intensely flat, I mean flat flat. It spreads out and seems to go on forever. There were fields of sugar cane and more fields of sugar cane but also interspersed are chemical plants, grain depots, refineries, churches, joints, new McMansions in their so called gated communities, and little towns. There were huge facilities which had piping which ran up and over the road to river terminals on the other side of the levees.  There were also a huge number of pumping stations.  Lord knows how they build these places because the bottom lands are all silt down several hundred feet .

     The first plantation was called "Laura, a Creole Plantation." Creole has nothing to do with the color of your skin, it simply means you were locally born.  The style of the main house was of a more relaxed form of architecture but it was built up on stilts of cypress wood and brick.  The place had several families which owned it, but it too, as in Natchez, went belly up.  Same tradition of slave labor but different crop.  This one grew sugar cane.  To this day Domino has one of its largest plants in New Orleans along the waterfront.  It was disgusting to read in the museum the price for the slaves the owners paid.  St Charles Parrish required the slave owners to give each family a 16 x 16 ft space in which to live. Two families would share a central chimney. You have all seen pictures of slave cabins!  Unfortunately, after the war most former slaves had to sign on as "freemen." They were paid in plantation money which of course was only good at the plantation store.

     I have to admit that seeing the iconic Oak Alley Plantation was on my bucket list. The alley itself did not disappoint. There were only 14 trees per side of the 1/4 mile alley but those 14 live oak trees completely shaded the distance.  There are live oak trees everywhere. And because it had rained the Resurrection Fern growing along their limbs perked up.  If it hasn't rained the fern look all brown and shriveled up but come the rain, they immediately green up.  The trees at Oak Alley were probably transplanted as mature trees but nothing like the massive hulks that they are today. The limbs span out so far that they reach the ground but grow back upward looking as though they have gone underground for a section or two.  The mansion?  Blech! What ever, it was big with 28 windows, 28 doors and 28 trees. High ceilings, massive dark wardrobes. yadda, yadda all built on the backs of slaves. The Shermans, the last owners bequeathed the grounds and buildings to the state.

     My visit to NOLA yesterday happened to coincide with a Music Festival.  Every public space in the Quarter was decked out with a bandstand and vendors of drinks and food.  And I mean drinks. Hard liquor and beer. The place was mobbed.  I walked down to the levee on the river and booked a luncheon cruise aboard the Natchez, a stern wheeler.  New Orleans is a considerable distance from  the Gulf of Mexico. The river at New Orleans runs west to east with Lake Pontchartrain to the north.  The directions all got me confused at first. During Katrina it wasn't the river that flooded, it was the Lake.  New Orleans is one of the largest ports in the world with its main commodity grain. There are funny square faced tug like ships which hitch up grain barges to the front and push them down the river. The grain barges are very long and low with rounded metal roofs. The Natchez is a steam driven stern wheeler, another item on my bucket list. While on board we were seranaded by a dixie land jazz band and boy were they good.  Afterward I strolled the French Quarter going east towards Cafe Du Monde, famous for its beignets.  Basically a beignet is a light piece of fried dough, presented smothered in confectioners sugar.  I don't know how I scored a seat so easily, but I found a seat in the a/c and was mighty glad. Temperatures were registered in the 80's with 99.9% humidity.

     Everywhere I strolled there were pop up bands or kid drummers not to mention the scheduled acts. I found a nice clothing shop where, out the back door, was an 8 piece brass band from Wales, UK playing some great music. I found a seat there and talked with a New Zealand couple who lived and worked in Brazil. She said Brazil now has a fascist leader.  I asked why people would vote for a fascist and she responded that 'fake news' was responsible.  Go figure!  I finally decided I would hit Bourbon St on my way back to the shuttle. There was a great jazz group performing which had the most fantastic clarinetist playing. She was black and she was old and apparently famous!  And I got to hear her play and sing!

     Bourbon street was mobbed, both on the street and up on the metal-worked balconies.  I think I was the only person who was not carrying a drink. Nor did I barf on the sidewalk but I had to step over numerous ...........

      Today I used the shuttle again to go back to the French Quarter but I immediately started to return to the campground via the green trolley which negotiates the historic St Charles District. The St Charles district is THE address to have apparently. There is some really wonderful architecture. In fact the whole city has some fantastic architecture of which I took nary a picture. If I started taking pictures of every ........So then the trolley took so long to wend it's way along I missed the bus because of the Sunday schedule.  But it was so great to be able to get a local bus back to the campground.  I am now sitting at the campground with my wool hat and fleece on. My hands are so cold I can barely type. Yesterday was so  hot and muggy but a raging storm went through last night bringing a 20 degree drop in temperatures. I slept through most of it last night because I was so tired.  So I have seen the Big Easy and I never have to go back to NOLA!

Tomorrow I am off to Texas.

Pictures to follow when I get a better band width with which to download.

     Driving the Natchez Trace Parkway is an ethereal experience.  The Trace is an historic two lane roadway which runs for 444 miles from Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS. It is administered by the National Park Service. Originally a buffalo trail, it was used by native Indians. Then was tramped by early settlers who rafted their products on flat bottom boats all the way from the Ohio River basin to the Mississippi river and down to Natchez or New Orleans. The settlers, who did not want to beat upstream against the mighty “Miss,” sold their boats for lumber and walked back home. It sounds to me like a rough and tough way to return home. And after driving the Trace from northeastern MS all the way to Natchez I can appreciate the hardships of the trail. The land is all extremely flat but the waterways and wetlands are formidable.

     As I drive south I have Michelle Obama’s excellent book on my bluetooth.  The roadway has no wires, telephone poles, no signs or billboards.  Discreet brown wooden signs with small white letters announce the historic stops along the way.  It is a green parkland with little elevation. It runs through forests of light green spring leaves and agricultural fields covered with golden mustard weed.  I see signs for a hiking trail which covers much of the route but the Trace itself is a Mecca for bikers who are accorded the whole lane of the highway.   Bikers have the right of way and the speed limit is only 50 MPH for cars. No trucks allowed, although large RV’s are allowed.

     In my drive, I think about the fact that I have passed the place where Merriweather Lewis died. I have passed through the cities of Tupelo and Jackson without knowing I was in a city. I have bought coffee off the Trace in Kosciusko where Oprah Winfry was born. The road is so smooth it is a dream to drive.  I think about too, the fact that this is Choctow, Cherokee and Chickasaw country before the tribes were marched partway up the Trace in the Trail of Tears.

     

     I stop at the Mississippi Center for Crafts and of course fall for a handwoven basket of pine needles and birch bark. Then I indulge in a late lunch of gumbo made from chicken, shrimp and sausage as well as spices, vegetables and rice. It is so good I buy more to take along.  As I chow down on my gumbo the waitress, Kelly moseys over to chat. She is curious about me and where I am from.  She warns me that if I am caught speeding on the Trace it will garner me a ticket $300 more than a ticket in town.  Apparently the National Park Service takes speeding seriously. Back in the car I put on the cruise control to cap my speed, something I don’t normally do when I have a book on the bluetooth.  Most of the time I have the the entire road to myself with no one in either direction.

     I stop at a cypress and water tupelo swamp with access via a boardwalk.  I question my sanity because of fear of snakes but none drop from the trees. Back in my car I read that I might also have encountered an alligator or armadillo.  I look what a picture of a water tupelo looks like but can’t determine the difference between it and the cypress. Both type of trees seem to be able to survive with very wet feet.

     I take possession of the last available spot at the Jeff Busby Campground. All campgrounds are first come, first serve while some are only for bikers.  It is raining lightly so I crack every window for ventilation, happy that I have installed rain guards on the windows.  I sleep on the woods side of the car, so I leave the window privacy boards off.  As the rain eases I look out onto a fairy-like kingdom. The fireflies are out in force. They blink and wink with the brightest white. Off in the distance there are flashes of far away lightning.

    Monte Sano State Park, located on one of the limestone ridges in the Huntsville, AL area is a real gem and site 51 is the prime location for views across the flat bottom lands. Huntsville seems to be a prosperous city. Most of the homes are ranches but there are a smattering of Mc-Mansions of dubious architectural style. I haven't seen a two story colonial yet!  The park sits on one of several limestone ridges that seemed to have popped out of the agricultural landscape surrounding Huntsville.

    My drive to Huntsville has been very nice.  The first two days my mind was kept occupied by an audio book borrowed from the Ocean County Library via their new system called Overdrive. I download a book to my Kindle and then connect to my cars speakers via bluetooth.

     The first day I so enjoyed a section of road west of DC. I took I-66 west but then got off onto US 29 and then 211 heading towards Luray. The scene was something out of typical Americana - historic inns, vineyards and white fenced fields with grazing horses. The rolling hills were just gorgeous with
spring starting to burst out.  Near Luray I got onto I-81 which makes a straight shot SW across Virginia staying in the valley between the first and second ridges of the Appalachians.  I-81 is only a four lane highway and serves as a major truck route.

    My first night was a pretty interesting experiment. I pulled into a huge 24 hour Walmart parking lot and sidled up to the only RV in the lot at the time.  I put the cardboard blinds I had made into the windows and crawled into my sleeping bag for the night. Other RVs came in afterwords and by morning I discovered a whole fleet of RVs and trailers.  This was the first time I had tried the boards and they worked very well. They shield all of the light and gave me complete privacy. The temperature got down to 42 degrees during the night but I was cozy in my long johns,  hat and sleeping bag.

    The second and third nights were spent at the house of a friend in Asheville, NC.  What a great location - arts, crafts, craft beers, and a vibrant music and restaurant scene. There is access to biking, and hiking as well as river rafting.  Our first order of business was to visit a football sized antiques and collectibles location called the Tobacco Barn - all under one roof. The afternoon was spent visiting St James Cathedral to view an exhibit by a gifted fiber artist known for her liturgical banners.  The Cathedral was built by George Washington Vanderbilt in the housing village he built for all of his employees working at the Biltmore Estate.  The same architect who designed the Estate also designed the Cathedral (Hunt). The stained glass windows are on a par with those of La Farge and Tiffany. The three of them developed a new American style and method of making stained glass.

    For the trip to Huntsville, LA from Asheville,  I went west and south of the Smokies.  It was nostalgia time.  While driving there I got to revisit several areas I had hiked when I did an Appalachian Trail thru-hike starting at Springer Mountain, GA. It brought back such good memories of stopping in the Nantahala gorge to resupply and to raft the Nantahala River.  Coming out of the gorge put me into the vast rhododendron forests I had hiked through and under while on the AT. There are trees in the upper story of the woods but massive groves of wild rhododendron seem to have been fertilized with steroids.

    Farther along I came across the site of the 1996 Olympics canoe and kayak venue built along the Ocoee River.   There are many rivers and TVA dam formed lakes in this general area of TN, GA and AL.   Because of an upstream dam on the Ocoee River, part of the river only runs seasonably in the summer time. For the Olympics that section was narrowed from 200 feet to 70 feet wide. The course was engineered and built in such a way as to make it difficult to see where the construction took place. Unbelievably the Ocoee is the only real river used by any Olympics. Using dam releases the area is now home to numerous river rafting trips in addition to racing on the former Olympic course.

    It rained the first night at Monte Sano. This event caused me to spend the next day rethinking how to attach my tentlet to my car.   Both the bug-netted tent and rain fly are designed to attach to a roof rack. I don't have a roof rack so I was attaching both in through the hinge area at the top of the hatch door. As a result, water ran down the tarp and into the gully of the door hinge and into my netted area which has a floor. PPP on my part.  The solution I came up with was to buy a separate 5 x 7 tarp and duct tape it to the rain fly so the attached piece will divert any rain forward and over the body of the car.  It looked good after I made the adjustments!

    My visit to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville was a revelation. When watching our space escapades on TV it is hard to get a real feel for the size of the individual pieces. A Saturn V rocket pointing to the sky is the first thing you see upon entering.  It is massive.  Then upon entering the complex there is the space shuttle Pathfinder mounted on it's external fuel tanks. The shuttle is massive but so are the tanks. Inside one of the buildings is a Saturn V on its side. Located there also is the Apollo 16 command module that had made its trip to and from the moon in 1972. The heat shield is pocked and pitted with chunks missing! Alongside is a Moon Rock under multi layers of steal-proof glass! Nearby is the LM. I never realized how large and gangly it looks. Apparently there was no need to make it aerodynamic. We had a wooden model to manipulate as a demonstration of how the moon rover unfolded.  The Mercury and Gemini capsules were truly crazy small!  Our Astronaut crews have to be certifiable crazy.

    Also on the grounds was a huge tank where astronauts train in an underwater environment because it is the closest to feeling weightless. Modules of our first space station were out on the grounds as well as a variety of modules used in our current International Space Station endeavors. Pictures of the current space station reveal a rube goldberg assemblage of various modules attached end to end.

    The biggest revelation was that 2019 is the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday. The Apollo 11 went to the moon and back with the equivalent of two 286 DX computers and slide rules. There is more computing power in a smart phone today.

    Last night I packed everything into my car, opened the windows and installed the bug netting.  I crawled into bed and fell fast asleep only to awaken to pouring rain coming in my windows.   I used my hiking poles, one for the brake pedal and the other for the starter to get power for the windows. It raged and blew up quite a storm. I learned early this morning that northern AL got massive thunder storms.  My friend called this AM to tell me she almost called me last night.   I am not a very good weather forecaster.

    I am heading to MS today in order to get on the Natchez Trace Parkway which is administered by the National Park Service. The Trace goes from NE-SW Mississippi and ends at Natchez on the Mississippi River. Natchez, at one point in US history, was the third largest city in the country.
I have been writing the blog along the way but have not found an internet connection that was convenient until this morning.   I am sorry for the way the pictures are arranged. This blogspot is hard to control!

The space Shuttle with external tanks

Saturn V

The Five engines of the Saturn V

The Saturn V on its side

The LM