June 3,4 2012 Cataloochee, NC

The next day dawned and no one had shown up in our old site and we had to move back to it, it was even harder to shoehorn the bus  back into that tiny site. Took forever to get in. John was livid at the host, he was going to give her a piece of his mind.  But didn’t, we went hiking on Boogerman trail.  The Boogerman’s real name was Robert Palmer. When he was in grade school they asked him what he wanted to be called and he said the Boogerman. The nickname stuck for the rest of his life. He was kind of reclusive and lived alone up on a ridge. He never sold the logging rights to his land, so there were tons of HUGE old growth trees. He liked to hide in the trees and scare any children that came up there.

The Boogerman Trail. John wrapped around a really big tree. There were huge trees here. They had cleared the fields for their farms, and most of those had grown back in since 1930 when the area became a park , the trees up here were old growth trees.

Flowers on the hill side. It was really lush here. The Smokey's are the get 80  inches of rain a year, the rainiest place in the USA. John using his foot for perspective on how big the tree is.

Lush and really green. I think of this green as spring green, but it is summer here now. Huge trees

Moss, three leaved plant with flowers presented on top, a huge fiddle head on a fern, red mushroom, weird leaf, spider, crawfish, another type of fern fiddle head.

Stone wall left over from the Cataloochee residents, John on top of it.

tiny white trumpet flowers, lichen, some kind of pine drops, white flower, brown lichen, tree ears and  colorful tree ears, they were bigger than my hand, and this looks like poison ivy, but exactly, we wonder if it is??

John the boogerman on Boogerman trail, The hike ended up being  7.6 miles with  1,500 feet ascent. Straight up and down, all of the slopes around here are really steep. John inside a burned trunk

John walking by a mountain laurel in bloom, on a long bridge. There are a million creeks, and we crossed them all a million times.

This bridge is out. Here I am crossing the creek, John took lots of photos, he was hoping to get one of me falling. . .

Another bridge, it was propped up on the end. Me with a huge tree on the ground

Another triple leaf flowered thing, a trillium plant-we are too late for the blooms, but they have 9 kinds of trilliums that bloom here, this one was a huge one, galax flowers, cool leaf, margined burying beetle, tulip tree leaves, white clover

sassafras leaves, cool colored leaves and  our guard snake at the bus

John contemplating the huge trees above the bus.

The next day we kind of hung out and relaxed, recovered from the hike the day before. The host came by, knocking on the door , while I was in the shower, to see people showed up and took the other site (they left for the night, if we’d know that we would not have moved!) To keep John from confronting her, I went to the door wet in my bathrobe and told her, no they did not show up and it was hell moving the bus in and out of that site.  She was nice to me.

More elk ,seen on my evening bike ride, in the meadow and by the Palmer house.

Purple flowers blooming on a bush by the road.

June 1-2, 2012 Cataloochee, NC

It started to rain in the night, and rained till about 3 pm. About 2 we went out in our raincoats to see the cemeteries.

The Palmer graveyard was by the Palmer place.  Looks like one of the Palmers was a Confederate soldier

Palmer graveyard, red salamander –there are 30 species of salamanders here it is so wet.

Palmer cemetery, detail of the Palmer barn-the yellow is some kind of moss

Storm breaking up, one of the fields

Palmer Chapel cemetery, Palmer corner of the Palmer Chapel cemetery

Palmers children, Alvin’s says ‘seeded on earth to bloom in heaven’ and Pauline’s said  ‘A sunbeam from the world has gone to rest’

miles of bracken ferns

Caldwell barn, Caldwell cemetery

wild turkey, elk

elk, and sunbeams thru smoke in the campground.

It was very cold last night after raining all day, we woke up to 48 degrees outside. Had to pull out the fleece. A bull elk with tiny velvet antlers

a calf elk, and look don’t approach wildlife, all of these elk photos were taken while I was on my bike. I felt pretty  unprotected, not being in a car and these elk were so close to the road.

a bull looking over his shoulder at me, and some by the historic barn

This little girl was so cute, that I had to get into the act too.

Some one else had our site reserved for one night, then we had it the next two nights. We had another site reserved for tonight.  John wanted to stay put and ask the new people if they would move. So he sat all day waiting for them. The host, whom John already did not like-became the a B------, she told him he had to move a dark if no one showed up. The site we are in is really tight for such a big motorhome. So after my bike ride we moved, took a whole bunch of forward, back  up adjustments to finally get out.