6 May 2016, Friday

The rain has stopped. The official weather report confirms that 3 inches
of snow fell at higher elevations. We cannot see any snow from here
and that’s fine with me. We eat our breakfast and elect to laze
around camp, drying out, cataloging some of our flower photos, making
some modifications to our backpacks and finding a number of
wildflowers right in our own backyard.

We watch as Cataloochee Campground goes from only 4 occupied sites
yesterday to almost full for the weekend today.  Across from us is a
long base dual axle Sprinter that looks like it must have every
upfitting in the book. Around the corner are two young families
camped together with a total of 7 kids under the age of 5. Jared, one of the dads, has invited us to share supper with them, but apparently we geezers get
hungry earlier than little kids who are fishing.

We go on an abbreviated walk up the Cataloochee and find the second
major bridge over the creek is out. We turn back as we do not feel
like donning water shoes today.

I’ve managed to get most of my blog onto the computer and am hoping to
upload tomorrow in Asheville if we have a good internet connection. O
and I go over to chat with our friend, Jared’s, wife and her friend. We extend our regrets for dinner and find out he never told her about the invitation. She just smiles and says, “That’s Jared!” We tell the wives about the elk and wild turkeys up the road. The children may enjoy seeing them. Then we return to our own dinner.

After dinner we take a stroll along the paths behind the campsite and
photograph yet another unknown wildflower. We have already taken down
the tarp in preparation for our departure in the morning. The sky is
a deepening blue with scattered puffy clouds and once again it is
quite cool. We are ready for breakfast in Asheville tomorrow.