Date: 2003-11-03
To: Cowee Mountain
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

My arm problems had been alleviated. But when I went back to doing full work in the shop, including a normal amount of cutting, my problems got worse. When I told the school owners about it they offered to let me spend some time in the office and some time in the shop while I get better. I spent last week in the office in front of a computer. Feels just like old times. Being in the office, even on the computer, seems to be easier on my arm than mortising and sawing. I have to use Windows though, and the more I use it the less I like it and the stranger it seems to work. I am helping in the shop most of this week. There is a workshop going on and I am helping to lay out, check and clean up students work.I have been doing lots of things the last few weeks. A couple of weekends ago my father came down to Maryville for his college¢s (Maryville College, I went ther for a year, too) homecoming. Since it is just over the mountains, I decided that I would go over and meet him on Sunday if he wanted to stay another day. Just over the mountains! Hah! I set out Sunday morning for the 90-odd mile drive over. I left at 8. Then 20 miles out of Cowee Mountain I discovered it was only 7 because of the time change. The drive took over 2-1/2 hours because there was no real good way from here to there. For a good part of the way I was on a couple of endlessly twisting two-lane mountain roads where I couldn¢t go more than 30 mph. Anyway, I finally got there and we drove over to Alcoa (Uncle Ralph¢s) where we looked at some of the places his family had lived and told me some things I never knew about them. One of my great-uncles was in the diplomatic corps in Madrid and Lisbon, two espionage hotspots, during WWII. Then we drove over to Maryville and Maryville College and looked around some. I recognized nothing in town from the year I spent there. It had changed that much. The college campus was much nicer than it was when I was there in ¢68-¢69. If it had been that nice when I was there I would have tried harder to stay. It was a dump then. Now it is a pretty, quiet, classic, small-town, small-college campus.We drove over to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and took the Cade¢s Cove circle. Cade¢s Cove is a valley in the Smokies where, until the park was opened, the people were isolated and self-sufficient most of the year. There was only one road in and out and that was the Rich Mountain Road around (what else?) Rich Mountain, which linked up with the Maryville Highway. The Rich Mountain Road is still open (one-way, out of the park) to anyone who wants to drive it, so we did. It is an unimproved dirt/gravel road, one lane, with some pull-offs. It¢s only about 7 miles long, but it takes about an hour to drive it and now, as then, it is closed in winter. I had always seen it on maps of the park and wanted to drive it. My father had driven it several times when he was in college in the forties. Now I have. After a couple of other insignificant stops, I dropped my father back at his hotel and headed back to Cowee Mountain. I passed up several good opportunities to get gas as I left Maryville, thinking there would be less crowded opportunities later. I figured I had enough to get back without having to stop. As I turned left off the main highway and headed back to the mountains, dusk began turning to night. This was the first night after the time change, so dusk set in at about 5:30 and darkness fell quickly after that as the sun set behind the mountains. I passed a number of small farms and houses. Then the signs of civilization ended as I drove along several TVA lakes, long and narrow, set deep in the mountains, like tarns in a Poe poem. I only passed a couple of cars as I drove by the lakes. By the time I got past the lakes it was almost fully dark. I seemed to be the only traffic going in my direction. I was beginning to wonder if the locals knew something I didn¢t. Then I got to the first stretch of endlessly twisting road. I passed several cars going in the other direction right at the start of that stretch. Then I passed no other cars for an hour. And I was still the only traffic going in my direction. My gas was going a lot faster than I thought it would. I descended and drove beside another lake until I finally crossed its dam and began to ascend another twisting, turning mountain road. Then it got foggy. Great big patches of it, broken by stretches of absolute clearness. Brights off, brights on. My finger started to get tired. Then it started to rain. Not hard. But just hard enough to add to the misery. There I was. Not able to go over 30 mph because of the road, the fog AND the rain. I will make it to a gas station. I will make it to a gas station. All my senses were on alert. But not alert enough.I creamed the frog. I saw his wetness reflected in my headlights as he hopped twice in front of me. I hit him at the peak of his third hop. I couldn¢t do anything about it. Sorry about that. Finally, cars going in the opposite direction. Eventually the road straightened out some as I began to come to civilization again. No gas stations open. Still virtually no other traffic. The only sign of people was the church lit up for Sunday evening services. The road opened up into four lanes. Still foggy. Still raining. Headlights! Behind me. Traffic going in my direction! Not for long. He blew right by me and disappeared into the fog. Then ¢ BP! Gas! Finally! I filled up and unclenched my butt. More twisty two lane road. In and out of the fog. Brights on and off. Finally the turnoff to Cowee Mountain. Twisty two lane again, but narrower now. Home free. Relax a bit.The cow jumped right in front of me. Twist the wheel left, then right again. Safely around it. Cow¢s not steak yet. 8 pm. Pull up to the shared cabin with a bunkroom and a common kitchen. No one there. Am I the only person in the world tonight? Got a good night¢s sleep that night.I stopped by the local outfitter the second week I was here and saw that they had a corner devoted to telescopes and astronomy. The owners¢ (father Dave and son Kevin) hobby is astronomy and the photos I saw were taken at their observatory, which is south of Franklin in Otto. They rivaled anything I have seen from the Hubble Space Telescope, but their scopes don¢t get nearly as deep into space. I also found out that they have public viewings twice a month, weather permitting. I stopped by again because I have thought about buying a telescope for the last few years and I wanted to see what they recommended. I wanted a telescope capable of seeing the nebula in the sword hanging from Orion¢s belt and they recommended an 8-inch reflector for about $700. I was surprised at how (comparatively) inexpensive a good telescope is and how far you can see into space with even a small one. Well, it was small in terms of it¢s 8-inch size, but large in terms of it¢s bulk, about 60-70 pounds and it was as tall as I am. I can¢t afford one right now, but when I get more settled¢¦ We got to talking about astronomy and how to get started. They had a viewing scheduled for last Saturday so I went down there and joined them. The observatory is about 10 or 15 minutes off the main north-south highway out of Franklin toward Atlanta (on a fun road to drive, good banked curves, smooth surface, good sight lines). They have 3 telescopes. A 14-incher is outside, seemingly on a platform, but the platform has been built around the mount for the telescope. The mount is a 14-foot high column of concrete, sunk an additional 7 feet into the ground. The other two telescopes are inside, under domes that can be opened and are mounted the same way. The shelters and domes have been built around them. One of the inside telescopes has a digital camera and a Windows pc attached to it for photography. They¢ve spent some money on their setup but they have built most of it themselves. Usually they have ten or so people there for a viewing but there was nothing special going on in the skies that night so I was the only one there for a good part of the time. The things we looked at through the telescope were great. We saw the moon, the Dumbbell Nebula, the Andromeda galaxy, a star cluster, a twin globular cluster, a double star, the Pleiades and several other things. The moon was about half full and it really drowned out most of the stars around it, so we mostly looked away from it. I learned four new constellations in addition to the four I already knew: Aquila, Cygnus, Pleiades, and Pegasus. Oops, five: Taurus too. And I remember where to look for them too, at least in the sky this time of year. Then we went into the dome and I watched as Kevin shot some photos of the moon. It was a good night. I¢ll go back again if I can. The moon rises late on their next viewing night. I¢m gradually finding things to do.The goats confirmed the gourmet license plate story. I saw them eating cardboard off the ground in front of the cabin yesterday. They also found something to eat ON the house and munched until we chased.