Back from Gatlinburg, TN where I spent my first full vacation week of the calendar year.
My parents mark 50 years of marriage nine months from now and asked the family to meet them in the Smokies to celebrate the milestone anniversary in advance. My Mom and Dad have fond memories of a family trip to the Smoky Mountains in the 1970’s and wanted to bring the kids (and their kids) back for an encore.
The two towns that serve as gateways to Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the north are Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Both places have congested main drags that are crassly inauthentic; aimed at trapping tourists who crave fudge, miniature golf and other schlock-type stuff.
The real attraction here is the national park which is one of just a handful in the US that doesn’t charge a fee to enter. Great Smoky Mountains National Park occupies a half-million acres of land straddling Tennessee and North Carolina. It draws by far the most annual visitors of any national park in the US.
Our home base for the trip was a sprawling cluster of cabins equipped with modern resort-like amenities on private land north of downtown Gatlinburg. We only made two significant park incursions during the week. The highlight came on Friday, our last full day of the trip. In two vehicles, ten of us went up to Clingman’s Dome which at 6643 feet is the highest point in the Smokies. To reach the concrete observation deck atop the peak, you walk up a paved, half-mile trail that’s pretty steep but not unbearably taxing physically. Visibility was low when we reached the top. Passing clouds obscured the view although the 20-degree drop in temperature up there felt really good compared to the hot and sticky we were feeling down in the valley.
The big parking lot that collected cars driven by Clingman’s Dome visitors offered great views below the cloud ceiling although I found it jarring to process the apocalyptic sight of dead Fraser Firs up and down the mountains for as far as the eye could see. A non-native bug is blamed for destruction of most fir trees in the Smokies. There’s also said to be linkage between global warming/environmental degradation and the demise of the forest.
We didn’t see any bears as we moved around inside and out of the park but we did see a turkey. And lots of flying insects.
Our best meal of the trip came on the vacation’s final night when my youngest brother grilled pork ribs and chicken over charcoal in a Weber kettle. We had nightly cocktail hours and lots of leisure time which was nice. My room had cable television so I was able to see a week’s worth of World Cup action on ESPN. Ian Darke drives me crazy with his statements of the obvious and determination to make himself the focal point of the broadcast. Not to be xenophobic, but there are at least two esteemed soccer play-by-play guys with deep ties to the sport in this country who deserve the role as primary voice on English language World Cup telecasts in the US ahead of Darke. If JP Dellacamera doesn’t do it for you, why not Steve Cangialosi? As things are, we’ll have to wait until 2018’s Cup in Russia when FOX takes over the US broadcasts to get an American voice on the play-by-play mike. If plans hold, Gus Johnson will serve in that role four years from now.
Last Thursday night, we went up to Kodak, TN to see the Tennessee Smokies play the Chattanooga Lookouts on opening night of the Southern League season’s second half. This is high quality pro baseball at the Double-A level. The Cubs have loaded the Smokies club with lots of future major leaguers since affiliating with TN in 2007. Unfortunately, future Cub slugging star Kris Bryant had just been promoted out of Tennessee a day before the game we attended. Still, we got to see 25-year-old Korean right-hander Dae-Eun Rhee who has a mid-90’s fastball and could see a Cubbie call-up in September.
The best player on the field was Chattanooga second baseman Darnell Sweeney who led the game off with a home run and made a couple eye-popping defensive plays. Sweeney (pictured above) was a 13th round pick by the Dodgers out of the University of Central Florida in 2012 and reminds me a bit of a young Alfonso Soriano.
The other talent that drew attention at this game was the voice of Smokies radio play-by-play man Mick Gillispie. We left after eight and a half and heard Gillispie’s call of the winning Smokies run bottom nine on the car radio. I’ve since listened to the free internet stream of a couple Smokies radio broadcasts and I really enjoy the pace and composure used by Gillispie as he describes the game. If the Cubs look to replace Pat Hughes at some point after they make the switch to WBBM-AM next season, they need look no further than Gillispie. He clearly has a handle on how to deliver a vivid description of what’s before him and only elevates the volume when absolutely necessary.
My flights to reach Knoxville and back didn’t go as planned but both the inbound and outbound journeys were each completed in long single days.
One general observation about air travel: I’m seeing an alarming decline in the baseline cleanliness standard for both aircraft interiors and airport gate waiting areas used by the carrier I work for. Even at hub properties which fall under daily scrutiny by those setting and enforcing these crucial standards, I’m shocked at the indifference over infrastructure that is trashed and unkempt. I believe there is a direct correlation between one’s overall impression of the flying experience and the cleanliness of their surroundings on the airplane and at the gate. Sure, there are other factors, but a clean plane and gate is crucial. I’ve traveled a lot domestically over the last 20 years thanks to the benefit attached to my job and never can I remember seeing the kind of filthy conditions I’ve come across in the last year or so.