April 15th is approaching and the tax returns had yet to be done. Before we left, all of our tax data was not yet available. Time was running short and we didn't expect to be home before April 15th. So it was tax filing day on the road.
I hoped on the motorcycle and headed off into Gatlinburg, through the tourist traffic, to the Gatlinburg Library, where high-speed Internet access was available. It is a nice new library, with a focus on online access. It has a rather small collection on the shelves, mostly recent titles, but a large number of terminals for Internet access, along with WiFI.
I found an empty table by the fireplace in the reading room with an outlet and plugged in for the morning. It took a while to update Turbotax and collect missing bits of data, but I was successful in completing and electronically filing our federal and state returns. Sometimes technology works well.
When I came out of the library, my bike was wet. It had rained. It looked pretty dark in the direction of the park, so it was time to head back, hoping to miss the rain. The road back into Gatlinburg was wet, but with only a couple of sprinkles of rain, I got back to the campsite and stored the bike away in the trailer before the deluge started—but where was Ellen.
She was out hiking. In the morning, she went off with Harry & Sally to hike up the Little River Trail and through the remains of the Appalachian Club. Then after lunch she and Sally decided to do another hike up the Jakes Creek Trail. As the rain started, I asked Harry what they had brought with them. He thought they took nothing along, so we expected the return of a couple of drowned rats. Fortunately, Harry was misinformed and they had taken ponchos along, so were only a bit wet when they returned.
The rain and thunderstorms continued for the rest of the day and overnight, so it was a quiet night in.
Photos
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