14/08: In the Great Smokies: Random Thoughts on the Road, 4
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
We spent some time in the glorious Smoky Mountains. Staying the night just east of Knoxville, we traveled down US 441 from I-40 the next morning. Mile after mile of tourist traps and outlet stores and real estate offices. Most of the time I despise such places, but that day they struck me differently. I saw the tackiness, but it seemed appealing: American opportunism and ambition at work. We even stopped at two of the outlet stores: the wife needed new sandals and I needed a new wallet--since we don't buy Made in China, we must make an effort to find such things, and that day were successful.
The commercial activity ceased as the terrain grew rougher and the ridges higher. Then into the National Park. No entry fee! A free wonder. Green comes in a lot of shades: ferns in the shadows, maples and hemlocks; water drips and flows and falls. We took a few short hikes: within fifty yards of the road the vegetation silenced the motors of our fellow tourists. Steep slopes, high ridges, shadowy ravines, clouds above, below, and all around with occasional rain. The view from Clingman's Dome was grey. When the sun did break through at lower elevations the distant views were blurred by the "smoke" of moisture from the vegetation.
And, "smoke" from pollution. The highest ridges of the park have trees dead from acid rain, much of it caused by automobiles. We are driving ourselves to death. Including my wife and I. Interstate highways are ribbons of individual freedom--get up and go--but do carry costs. We are no longer a nation tied together by steel rails. We really had no choice if we wanted to visit the Smokies and see our son in Georgia, drive we must. When I was a child my father would take my mother and sister and I to the train station in Brookfield, Missouri. We took an early morning passenger train to Kansas City, about a 120 mile trip. After shopping and seeing a medical specialist we returned in the evening. That passenger line runs no more.
The commercial activity ceased as the terrain grew rougher and the ridges higher. Then into the National Park. No entry fee! A free wonder. Green comes in a lot of shades: ferns in the shadows, maples and hemlocks; water drips and flows and falls. We took a few short hikes: within fifty yards of the road the vegetation silenced the motors of our fellow tourists. Steep slopes, high ridges, shadowy ravines, clouds above, below, and all around with occasional rain. The view from Clingman's Dome was grey. When the sun did break through at lower elevations the distant views were blurred by the "smoke" of moisture from the vegetation.
And, "smoke" from pollution. The highest ridges of the park have trees dead from acid rain, much of it caused by automobiles. We are driving ourselves to death. Including my wife and I. Interstate highways are ribbons of individual freedom--get up and go--but do carry costs. We are no longer a nation tied together by steel rails. We really had no choice if we wanted to visit the Smokies and see our son in Georgia, drive we must. When I was a child my father would take my mother and sister and I to the train station in Brookfield, Missouri. We took an early morning passenger train to Kansas City, about a 120 mile trip. After shopping and seeing a medical specialist we returned in the evening. That passenger line runs no more.
