On the Mountain Top

A fast-rolling river cuts through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Elkmont, Tennessee.

“They carefully got all the mud and they laid it out on the rocks. And when it was dry enough, Grandfather threw it out into the water, and it became land. And the buzzard flew with his great wings. Each time when his wings went down, it would make a big valley. And each time the wings would go up, it would make a big mountains.
- Adapted from Living Stories of the Cherokee, “How the World was Made.” Kathi Smith Littlejohn


In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth....And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called seas.
- Genesis 1:1,9,10, The Bible, King James Version

It came to pass that we came into the Great Smoky Mountains to camp amid the mountains and the billions of falling leaves. The creeping walking pneumonia that I have been battling since sitting on a ridge in Reston, Virginia, is not better. But sitting in the national park lifted the spirits. Outside our RV on Tuesday night was a man with a sophisticated telescope. He had it trained on Jupiter so we watched that planet in the pristine night air. Four moons orbited around the planet and he said if we watched long enough we would be able to see gas trails coming off the planet. What a treat!

You have no electricity, running water or sewers or other niceties in the National Park. So it was a cold night: temperatures dropped to 36 degrees. Jo and I huddled under layers of comforters and blankets and the cat snuggled into the bend of Jo's knees. She was content to have us back in the rig after two nights when we luxuriated in the welcoming home of old boating buddies Terry and Susan in Banner Elk, North Carolina. Their home is perched on the side of a mountain and sends out vibrations of peacefulness. They took us up Grandfather Mountain. It's a mile high and the ice coated trees at the summit. But there's also a million dollar view up there and we loved watching the bears, deer and two cougars. This was a rare treat.

Now we are enjoying the beauty of the Smokies. But the road in, through Sevierville, Pigeon's Forge and Gatlinburg was the most horrendously commercial, filled with the ticky-tacky detritus of the worst of American consumption and gaudiness. It took more than an hour to drive 18 miles because of the nose-to-tail traffic.

So it was a spiritually uplifting moment to drive to the top of the Smokies and make our way to Clingmans Dome, a sacred mountain to the Cherokees, where the Magic Lake was once seen. The Great Spirit told the Cherokees that, “if they love me, if they love all their brothers and sisters, and if they love the animals of the earth, when they grow old and sick, they can come to a magic lake and be made well again.” My cough and rattling lungs were not healed by the climb to 6,600 feet. But I have faith that the journey in itself is the healing part.

This is where the Cherokee Trail of Tears began. You may remember, back in June, when we parked at the Trail of Tears Park alongside the Mississippi, we told a bit about the trail. This is the place where the Cherokees lived for thousands of years. And this is where the white settlers discovered gold and the fertile land they craved. So the Army pushed the Indians to the unexplored west.

A Ford van from Ohio pulled up alongside us and out stepped a gaggle of Mennonites. The men's pants don't have much in the way of pockets; they had a single button that held a triangular patch that, when closed, acted as a pocket. The ladies were in their white linen hats. All spoke in old German. They, too, came to feel the spirituality of the place.