Coop's Corner: Great Smoky Mountains

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Great Smoky Mountains - April 1978

The only reason I know the dates from this old trip are because they're written on the Kodachrome slides; it was Friday the 21st that I left the Twin Cities, the Smokies and Washington D.C my destinations. It was going to be another trip on the good ol' 1975 Honda CB750.

My riding started out near where we currently happen to live....first the hayfields, pastures, fencelines etc. on the Uncles' farm but it didn't take long before roads that really went somewhere were being 'sampled'. Those rides were summer rides when my brother and I were spending our summers on the farm. After my high school afternoons but before evening part time jobs, rides were being enjoyed within a 30 mile radius. The summer after I graduated (brother's Junior summer) he and I headed to Texas. We never made it that far but we did spend a couple of nights in Arkansas. He rode his '70 500cc Suzuki Titan and I was on my '1970 Sportster.

A year or so later I no longer owned the Sportster (dad and I had traded) and the trips were gaining distance and frequency.

Here's a shot of Lake Pepin from the Wisconsin side, a common ride/destination even way back then. I'm typing this post from a location tucked in the valley just behind that bluff on the right, the Minnesota side of the Mississippi River.

I spent that first night in Wyalusing State Park, high on the bluff at the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi River.

Still some April ice in the hidden areas below the bluffs......

"My" Rest Stop just outside of Galena, Illinois.....brother and I stopped here on OUR way south.

Near Hannibal, MO a destination of more than one of my weekend rides.

I happily and respectfully blame dad's dad and Mr. Sam Clemens for a good portion of my wanderlust and love affair with the Big River. Life On The Mississippi was essentially a guide book of mine during those years. The tugs, barges and what seemed like an almost ideal life eventually found me a year or so sitting in the Maritime Union office in St. Louis waiting for a shot at working one of the barge crews.

It never happened but I've always wondered.....

My next night out at the Land Between The Lakes.....Kentucky Lake on the Tennessee River. It's funny...what I remember the most about this campsite was the brandy at sunset....

In the bowels of the Kentucky dam....

Something much older.....

Field Trip day at the Visitor Center......

I've never really been a student of the Civil War but there was no lack of exposure to things 1860's on my trip.

It struck me as I was processing these old slide that the time spent photographing sheep and bison was a coincidence....once we were on the farm, our neighbor had a herd of these prairie beasts and as the kids were moving through 4H, we had quite a flock of sheep, sheep I had to attend Shearing School to harvest fleeces for Peg's spinning wheel.

I don't remember the ISO of my film in the OM-1 (200??) camera but these photos remind me of the number of flash photos that I took, something I almost never do these days with my digital units.

A Ford just like the one I worked the soil with, here this one is working river currents.

This little fella was truly a pest......

Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, the KY and VA border.....

The Tri-State Marker, KY, TN and VA

Insect control......

The Honda in the fog.......

I hiked up to Mt. Pisgah and the weather was crazy.....but exciting.

My shadow.....

That evening I sent a Postcard back to my grandparents in Wisconsin......

I don't remember where this campsite was but it was here that I met Christopher, hitch-hiking from St. Johns, N.F. Along the Parkways with their higher elevation, Spring was way behind. Down in the valleys, spring was very much in progress. Christopher and I rode down to the Winchester Apple Blossom Festival and after spending a couple of days with my new Newfoundland friend, the seeds had been planted for my trip to the Maritime's the following year.

The Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester.....It was a couple of years later that friends introduced me to Blossom Dearie at a small jazz club in Wisconsin. One of the L.P. albums she offered for sale that evening was Winchester In Apple Blossom Time and I brought that double album home, it continues to be one of my treasured records.

I planned to visit the D.C. area and decided to camp at the Manassas Battlefield Park and commute from there into the District.

We sat in the gallery while the Senate was in session.....I distinctly remember Inouye, Moynihan, Kennedy, Proxmire....... An very memorable experience!

While I was up in the Washington Monument, there were tornadoes around the Manassas area; no damage to my tent or the campground.

It was an incredible trip....did a lot of hiking along the wilder areas to the West and I'm sure put a bunch of miles exploring as many of the buildings on The Mall that I could. What I think I remember was 2 long days of riding to get home. I know I did the PA Turnpike and wasn't very impressed. :)

8 comments:

EricFebruary 12, 2017 at 6:25 AM
An incredible trip as a young adult. There is history with the floppy hats-now I know!
Been waiting for this post and really enjoyed it.
April 1978 I bought a new KZ 750 with adventure in mind. Your adventures whether old or new inspire me. Thanks for sharing!
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AnonymousFebruary 12, 2017 at 7:16 AM
Looks like yet another great Cooper adventure, as always, envious of those who do vs those of us who think it's more important to stay, only to look back and realize it wasn't
rmo
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SonjaMFebruary 12, 2017 at 11:05 AM
What a lovely trip indeed, Doug, and a great set of pictures to boot. The quality is those slides is still pretty good, and I like the fact that you not only documented your journey visually but also threw in some selfies for good measure. Thank you for taking me along traveling through time and your memories.
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redlegsridesFebruary 12, 2017 at 3:44 PM
Epic trip! Interesting, isn't it, what catches our eye and camera back then and now...
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)