It’s true folks. I was one with nature for 5 blessed days camping and hiking in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Me and a couple of my Indian friends went into the wilds to experience the mid-eastern jungle of America.
My brother-in-law once said that once you develop a taste for American cars, you can’t go back. For all their limited lifespan and horrid resale value, they give you pleasure like no other transport as long as they are in their prime.
The car we had hired was a 2003 Mercury Mountaineer from Budget. It had 9,000 miles when I took it out of the lot and put it back with 15,000. It was a V8, all-wheel-drive monster which was a blast to have under my control. The responsiveness of the car was amazing. Even with the A/C full blast it could overtake a car with the nimbleness of a new Civic. I raced this beast with gusto and it responded splendidly. I took it where no car had gone before…Literally.
The camp area my friend had booked was called Elkmont. It was the centermost camping area in the Smokies. The grounds were divided into alphabetical sections and we got B. Every section had 20 camp spots and they shared one toilet with only cold running water.
We had hired camping equipment from the school. We hired 4 sleeping bags, 2 tents, a stove, bought a propane laltain and a cooler. The tent was from a company called Kelty. Since it was my first time camping, it took me almost 3 mins to set up a camp. Now I can set it up in a min. They were so easy to assemble, it’s amazing. They were waterproof and bugproof, and sort of formed a cocoon around you. The zippers worked seamlessly. That’s important because you don’t want a stuck zipper when there is a 5 inch centipede crawling around on your tent.
The best investment for the trip that we had made was probably a 2 dollar torch which proved indispensable on those nights when you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It was specially necessary when you had to get into your tent in less then 5 secs otherwise a swarm of insects would follow you in. Then you had to check your tent for bugs…Since we had only one torch, I was always the last one in after having put the others in their tent.
If you ever have a desire to wear shalwar qameez in the forest, by all means don’t. One swoosh of your majestic kurta will pick up about 6 different species of insects and that’s not a pretty sight.
I am not sure if it was the season or what, but there were Daddy Long Legs in the forest. Gazillions of them. For those of you who don’t know what a Daddy Long Legs look like, here’s a picture…
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It’s about the size of half a hand full grown and they were literally falling off trees on our heads. When you walked through a trail or something, it was like walking on Rice Krispies. Crunch! Crunch! I must have walked over like a thousand of them.
They are harmless and don’t even weave webs, but I have a mild case of Arachnophobia, and the sight of so many of them just blew me away. Everytime I was standing outside of the car or tent, I would keep stamping my feet. And when one night as I entered my tent and sealed it and ran my torch around and saw two walking on my jeans, that really cured me. The only thing that kept me from screaming an invective was that I was too tired.
We visited the original Ripley’s BION museum, which was somewhat of a letdown for 12 bucks. I was expecting more. The biggest letdown was the 12 buck a piece Ripley’s house of horror. 5 bozos with makeup on kept appearing out of the dark with feathers and fake chainsaws to scare you. I scared them…
Ripley’s Aquarium is worth every penny. It’s also 16 dollars a pop. There I touched a Stingray and a Shark and held a Shell crab in my hand. I have never been so yucked in my life. The Shell crab eats with its feet as it has no mandibles or chewing ability, and the handler kept telling me to put my hand on its belly. She kept showing me, see? see? I can do it, so can you. I put my finger on its belly and all its legs curled up to grab my finger. As soon as the first tentacle touched me, I curled my finger and said thanks.
There was so much I saw I can probably write a small book, but I really miss those 5 days. I had a great time, and if anyof you decide to go camping, PM me…Will give you some good pointers…
…The red variety or the desi one? The red variety is unfortunately extinct. The closest I got to them was a plastic authentic pan pipe. As for the desi variety, we went along pretty smooth…I wished them independence and they wished me…
