Yet Another Campground — Smokemont

Time to go over the gap again. I wasn't really happy about the prospect of taking Speedy and the trailer over Newfound Gap again, but the consensus was to move on to Smokemont campground on the North Carolina side of the park. So off we went. The roads were mostly dry, so it was prettyy much uneventful.


Last year, when we were here, we found a secluded pull-through site at the end of the campground. It is actually the first site in a section that is closed until the high season, but is before the locked gate in the section. It was available and big enough to hold Speedy and the trailer and the Harry & Sally's Roadtrek as well. Not a bad deal for $7.50 a night. The downside was that the only open washroom was at the other end of the campground.

After setting up camp, we piled into the other Roadtrek and headed to Cherokee, NC, which is in the Cherokee Qualla Boundary reservation just outside the park. We were off to see the Cherokee Museum. But first, it was time for lunch. We decided on a local looking place called Paul's Restaurant, which had the requisite bunch of cars outside. It turned out to be a bit of a tourist joint. One of the local specialties was the Cherokee Taco, fry bread with taco filling on top. Ellen and Sally ordered it. Harry and I opted for cheeseburgers. We made the right choice.

When Ellen and I were out in the Southwest, we stopped at a local restaurant on one of the Indian reservations. It was really a restaurant for locals. One of their specialties was fry bread. It was a rustic flat bread with good texture and taste. Along with a spicy soup, it was one of the best lunches of our trip. Let's just say that Paul's fry bread bore no resemblance. It was a fat white doughy substance with close relationship to Wonder Bread. At least the cheeseburgers were just ordinary cheeseburgers.

The Eastern Band Cherokees have built themselves a rather fancy history museum. It is the type that one walks through in one direction and goes through time. In this case through the history of the Cherokee from the prehistoric through the coming of Europeans and the displacement and resurgence of the tribe. One either likes that style of museum or doesn't. It had a lot of information to see and read, but seemed a bit dimly lit. It is worth a visit.

After the museum, we found a local coffee roaster, Tribal Grounds. They roast fair-traded coffees and make a pretty good espresso. After a pick-us-up, it was back to camp.