3 May 2016, Tuesday
By the time we are ready to get up this morning the rain has stopped. We use
our body wipes to take a “bath” and feel pretty refreshed and
presentable enough for eating at restaurants on our way to Cataloochee campground.
Breakfast is at Le Peeps in Columbia, then we acquire some muffins at The Wired Goat for tomorrow’s
breakfast, ‘wired’ apparently referring to a caffeine
high. We are now on the road to Asheville.
We stop at Wicked Brew Co for an early dinner and sample a flight of 6 beers,
each better than the one before. We save the Mocha Porter for dessert.
Next order of business is topping off the gas tank. As we make a
U-turn to get to the Shell station we find ourselves in a Trader
Joe’s parking lot. How convenient! O stocks up on 2 day’s worth of
full fat honey yogurt and we resupply our emergency chocolate chip
cookie supply.
We head out of town on Rt 40 W and take exit 20. It is a bit confusing
finding Cove Creek Road, but we finally make our way over the winding
mountain road. In many places it is quite narrow and has no
guardrails…shades of Moki Dugway, but without the 1000 foot drop.
We are on the “drop-off” side going up the ridge to the campground and on the
inside going down the other side. I like the inside much better.
Here we are at Cataloochee. There is a pleasant creek behind our campsite
(#9). Our tent and footprint are spread out drying in the light
evening breeze. The air is cool, the sky is blue and the humidity is
low. So much better than our weather at Congaree! We are informed by
the campground hostess that there are, indeed, bears here and we
should take proper precautions. In this we are well-versed. Looking
around we see that we will have to take care hanging our tarp. There
is much poison ivy.
We have already developed poison-ivy phobia. We have done our best to
move the picnic table and tarp as far as possible from the brush,
but the annoying little plants are all over. Nonetheless, the tarp is
nicely hung and the tent is set up and much drier than it was this
morning. We will go from sweating in short sleeves last night to snuggling under our quilt in long
underwear tonight. Ahhhhhh!