I have to apologize for my lack of blog entries of
late. My delinquency was not of my
choosing nor was it my fault. The
campground we were in advertised free WIFI but access was virtually
nonexistent. We were also told at
check-in that AT&T delivered no service here. ZIP, zilch, zero, nada, none,
no bars. We had to drive several miles
in order to get bars.
The campground is on the Cherokee Indian reservation. Indeed, the campground is owned and operated
by a Cherokee family. Other than signs
by the road informing you that you have entered or exited the reservation,
everything looks like life everywhere else in America. However, as you live here awhile you begin to
notice that some things are different.
For example, there is no AT&T service on the reservation except at
the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino but Verizon is full strength on the reservation.
When you drive off the reservation you start to get bars for AT&T. Just sayin’...
Chipmunks and woodland ducks really own this place.
The Cherokee Indians call these mountains, "The hills of the blue smoke". They are labeled on maps as The Great Smoky Mountains. You can see why.
It is common that RV parks advertise WIFI access and not
deliver. We have encountered it too many
times and have taken action to have our cell phones turned into WIFI hot spots
as a work around. However, our phones are AT&T and since we have no cell
phone signal, well, you get the picture…
Now that I have finished belly-achin’ let me say that the
campground is great! It nestled in a small valley west of the Blue Ridge
Parkway in the Great Smokey Mountains.
It is beautiful here. The air is
cleaner, cooler, brighter. Happy Holiday
RV Village lies on an island between two creeks and is a large, well-managed,
friendly RV park with good, sweet tasting water and well maintained hook-ups,
bath houses, a pool, a stocked lake and plenty of maneuvering room. Since we
were here over Independence Day, the park’s population peaked.
We have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here. I will post some more of our adventures later.
The day before leaving Lake Wylie, Jacob and I took a ride up to Charlotte Douglas International Airport to see the Aviation Museum. While not a large museum, it has one very special and unique attraction: The Miracle on the Hudson. The engines of US Air flight 1549 from New York’s LaGuardia to Charlotte on January 15, 2009 ingested a flock of geese soon after take-off and soon failed. The pilot, Captain Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger saw that the Hudson River that separated Manhattan and Hoboken was the only possible alternative to crashing into populated land areas. The Air Bus A320, now a glider, was expertly handled and came to a stop on the water, now a boat, miraculously with no loss of life or even any sever injuries.
I know some of the people who were aboard that flight that
day because I worked for the same company headquartered in Charlotte. They were buyers, nine in all if my memory
serves me, who were returning from a buying trip in New York. This experience impacted their lives in
different ways: A couple resigned within a couple weeks because they could no
longer travel by air. Others asked to be
transferred to different jobs so they would not have to travel while other were
seemingly OK. All were brought closer to
their families or God or both.
I marvel at the strength
engineered into machines which can stand up to things like this and, at the
same time, be light enough to fly.
Cockpit of an old Boeing 727-100.
Jacob checks out the cockpit of an F4 Phantom.
The museum houses a very well cared for DC3 with good old Piedmont colors.
Old military aircraft on the tarmac of the museum.
That landing on the Hudson was truly a miracle.
ReplyDeleteLove those Smoky Mountains.