Last year, when we came to the park, we rode my new (to me) motorcycle around the Cades Cove Loop. We biked again this year, but on the mountain bikes this time. It is only 11 miles around, less than my usual morning bike ride at home. It wouldn't take long, would it?...only about five hours. The motorcycle ride last year was much like our recent Motor Nature Trail ride, slow and stuck behind lots of cars and we didn't even stop to see many of the sights, except the buildings and visitor center at the head of the cove. This time we made all the stops...and still had to wait for traffic.
The Park Service has preserved many of the original rural homes and cabins of the settlers of Cades Cove. They ranged from a one room log cabin to two story houses (which started off as one room log cabins) as well as many outbuildings and barns. They are all empty and open, kept in there original condition, which was very rustic. As they were mostly log homes, there was little interior decoration and no insulation. The sad part was the graffiti. It seems that many people can't resist carving a memento of their visit. Actually, the recent ones almost seemed worse, being magic marker. There was even "religious" graffiti in the churches.
They have also preserved three of the four churches that were active in the Cove. We arrived at the Primitive Baptist Church just as a daily talk was starting. It was an interesting presentation on the role of the church in this rural area. It was the first congregation in the Cove and was (and probably still is) a rather severe Baptist sect. They had no paid ministers and if it wasn't in the bible, it wasn't a right idea.
During the Civil War, the area was quite divided, being on the border with North Carolina. Although Tennessee was not a Confederate state, there were many who were in favor of the Confederacy. The Cave Cove Primitive Baptists, after a thorough consultation of the Bible, determined that the Union was biblically foretold, but the Confederacy was not, hence it was only temporary where the Union was permanent. So, they decided not to join the Confederate side and not participate in the war. This caused much friction in the area, even to the murder of one of the church elders who took action against the raiding of the farms in the Cove by Confederates. There is even a stone on his grave, "Murdered by North Carolina Rebels".
Each of the churches has an attached cemetery and they seem to still be in use, even though the congregations no longer exist. It seems that if you are within two generations of an actual Cades Cove resident who was a member of the church, you can still be buried in Cades Cove. As there were still people living in Cades Cove as late as the 1960's, there are still burials in the churchyards. Each of the ones we visited had internments as recently as last year.
After stopping at many sites and waiting for much traffic to pass, we finally got to the head of the Cove and the Visitor Center. It was well after lunch time and we weren't prepared. As this was only an 11 mile ride, we expected to be back at the campground by lunchtime. We were famished. Needless to say, there isn't anyplace to eat at the Visitor Center, but the shop had some heavyweight granola bars, three for $9. Three of these for lunch was just the thing—actually the only thing.
The ride back from the visitor center was a bit quicker than the ride out since most of the buildings are on the road into the Cove, it was mostly waiting for gaps in traffic.
On our return to our campsite, we found large pile of logs—and two missing trees. It seems that a tree between our site and the one occupied by the brothers was dead and overhanging their RV. They had mentioned this to the ranger who passed by the day before and, sure enough, a maintenance crew showed up and took the tree down, as well as another nearby. And just to make it worthwhile for the local campers, cut the trunks and branches into campfire log lengths and left them behind. With a bit splitting, we had free firewood for the duration of our stay.
We don't usually have a fire when we are by our selves, particularly when it is warm, but we had a reason this evening. Our friends, Harry and Sally arrived that afternoon, from their trip up the Natchez Trace and through Alabama. We had been expecting them to join us again at some point, but not quite so soon. The site next to us was available and they took it—a reason for a campfire.
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