Hunting the Elusive Signal

This morning we decided to take a short hike on the Nature Trail Loop which runs to the west of the campground. It was a pleasant, easy walk. We crossed the Bradley Fork on some interesting foot bridges.

After lunch we drove out to town to try to pick up a Verizon signal, starting at the Food Lion parking lot as the camp hosts had suggested. The Droids had plenty of bars, but the modem was less cooperative. We had an Internet connection, but it was weak and intermittent. After a while we decided to try the hospital parking lot (again, suggested by the hosts). The hospital turned out to be Cherokee, and the entrance sign was printed in both English and the Cherokee syllabary. Here the signal was definitely stronger, and we were able to look for a place to stay on the Tennessee side.

Our neighbors had suggested that the KOA was good, but $60 per night was more than we prefer to pay, so we looked at other possibilities. We almost made reservations at the Eagle’s Nest in Pigeon Forge, but then we decided that the drive to the park would be too long. So we ended up making reservations at Elkmont Campground, near the Sugarlands Visitor Center in the park. None of the campsites in the park has any hookups, and the available campsites were all in full shade, so we’ll end up using our generator again and conserving electricity—and we won’t have a Verizon signal.

We stopped at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, but ended up deciding that the $10 admission fee was more than we wanted to pay. Some reviewers were less than enthusiastic. The main reason was that we just went to the Smithsonian Native American Museum, and we figured that this one would probably add little to what we learned and experienced at the Smithsonian.

Next we went to the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, an artists’ cooperative offering both traditional and contemporary arts and crafts. It includes a small museum. We saw hundreds of lovely baskets, woven of various materials and using different techniques and designs. Pottery was also well represented, as well as sculpture in wood and stone, bead work, and drawing and painting. We were impressed by the quality of the work, but the prices are quite high (as expected for original art) and of course we have no room for anything, so we were lookers and not buyers.

We stopped by a few tourist souvenir and gift shops, but they featured junk made in China. We saw the usual tourist exploitation places (“Pan fer gold!).

The Cherokee nation has many dignified, culturally authentic events and places to offer, including Oconaluftee Village, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, an outdoor drama “Unto These Hills,” and more. These definitely contrast sharply with the tourist junk.


While we were in town we called Express Scripts, which had inexplicably sent our prescriptions out for the second time to the wrong address, even after Ken had called and explained the situation to a customer service rep who said he was taking care of everything. We hope that the third time is a charm and our prescriptions will arrive safely at Carol’s house well in advance of our arrival there. Good thing we don’t need anything soon!

We ran the generator today to try to charge our batteries. As long as there is no serious load, this seems to be working, albeit slowly. For some reason it decided to quit bulk charging at 91% charge and begin trickle charging, so the batteries got up to only 93% before the 8:00 p.m. quiet hour meant we had to turn it off.