Wildlife and bad weather

It was good to be back to camping in the parks, although the battles with the insect life are something I will not miss about this trip. Great Smoky Mountains is proud to be the US's most visited National Park, with an astonishing 9 million visitors per year. It is, however, the most underfunded, as there is no entrance fee: this is due to a condition made upon the lands being donated to the federal government that the age-old tolls to cross the area from North Carolina in to Tennessee, and vice versa, be abolished. I would question its visitation figures for a couple of reasons.

1) We were there on Labor Day weekend, the holiday marking the end of summer and, as pointed out by a friendly ranger, this park is within a day's drive of 70 million Americans. It was hardly what you'd call crowded.

2) Does visiting the tourist-tat filled neighbouring town of Gatlinburg (or Ghastlinburg) for pizzas, 70oz sodas, ghost-train rides, the aquarium (where's the water?), every kind of 'Smokies' memorabilia and a ride on the 200-yd long shuttle bus REALLY count as going to the park?

As with every other National Park we have explored, our first challenge was the find the steepest, scariest looking trail recommended by our National Geographic guidebook and take it on. Alum Bluffs Trail: Ok, so you climb 2600ft and it's a 5 mile round trip, which doesn't sound too bad - but the suggested timing for it was 6-8 hours, and this had largely been accurate from our experiences so far, so we were expecting something a bit rugged and slow-going. Add to this the mention of assisting cables for the last part of the journey, and we were convinced - Angel's Landing in Zion had been a short, strenuous climb and this sounded similar. It was lame: no life-threatening drops on either side of us, no sheer granite faces to scream over, no exhilarating dangling from ropes to get the blood racing. It was just a walk. Nice views from the top, but just a walk. Hmph. Maybe we're becoming travel-weary? Maybe.

The next day took us straight out of this rut, though. The map showed an unpaved road down to a quiet area of the park, called Cataloochee, where we were off to hopefully see some Elk. After bumping and boucing along for 30 minutes, thankful for the 4x4, knuckles turning white and expletives coming from under our breath at every pothole, we came upon some horse-riders. 'You lost?', they asked. 'We're heading to Cataloochee', we replied. 'You're on a bridalpath', came the answer. More bumping, more bouncing, whiter knuckles and louder expletives back the way we had come, to try a new route, which seemed a bit more like it.

We were rewarded: a whole family of elk were making their way across some open plains, with an enormous male leader bellowing orders to the pack to follow him. It was just magical to watch these beautiful, elegant creatures roam around in the wild. Great Smoky Mountains has had a successful programme to reintroduce the elk to the park, including initial phases in a special enclosure we happened upon during our hike that afternoon. It was a large circular expanse, where the first few elk had been accustomed to the area before being released to go freely. A similar programme had been undertaken with black bears, and we had a couple more encounters with these incredible creatures - from a somewhat safer distance this time, though! Watching a sow with her two cubs crossing the road, and the tearing off the bark of a tree to feed on, is one of the most memorable moments of the trip. We sat in the car, not even daring to breathe - I'm sure Ben will put up some of the few photos we managed to sneak soon.

Moving on to Shenandoah National Park, which was lost in a foggy haze for most of our time there, took a mere 12 hours driving. This was the longest we've spent in the car in one day, and I am happy to say we got out of the car still smiling and counting our blessings, and not screaming and at each other's throats..somehow! Maybe it was the thought of the well-deserved beers we had to enjoy on arrival.. Miserable weather kept us up all night, and drove us out of the park to the nearest town the day day. We whiled away the day in cafes and record shops in Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia, and took refuge in the cinema in the evening, to watch a book we've listened to en route - The Time Traveller's Wife. Read the book, leave the movie.

We're now in Washington, D.C., and having seen the White House and walked to Capitol Hill went to Chinatown for dinner last night. The kindly server was doing the right thing to ask for our IDs when we asked for beers, but his maths got the best of him and he couldn't quite work out how old I was: it must be confusing because here it looks like I'm born on the 9th day of the 18th month. Once he'd figured it out, he took Ben's. This also stumped him, and it took a few goes to get to the right answer. His eyes lit up. 'She very young', he told Ben. We laughed and he handed us back our licenses. 'She very young', came with the food.. and then with our drinks.. and then with our bill. Ok, we get it! In the US, you also need your ID to sneeze in public, buy pints of milk, and cross the street. Buying a gun, however - no problem. Ben has caught a bit of a cold and Sudafed is safely guarded by an armed (what else?) pharmacist here, but his ID wasn't accepted this morning at the local pharmacy. We're going to try to obtain arms later on, so we'll let you know how that goes.

We had planned to go to the coast for the next couple of days, but when I called to book a campsite this morning I was told I couldn't due to severe weather and flooding danger. Instead, we will try our luck inland a bit further before heading to Baltimore to see Melissa on Monday, where will be timing our arrival with the end of the medical students' first exam of the year. Don't expect to hear from us for a while after that night out! Bye for now.