A Familiar Feel

Day Two, May 24, 2008

By J. Trace Kirkwood

There's some adventure to arriving at strange place in the middle of the night and then waking up to have all your first impressions wiped away. We stayed in cabin 594 on Welch Road in Fontana Village. It was a nice cabin -- small but air conditioned and very new appliances. It also had an infestation of black ants, but we learned to live with them. We had the very same ants in our house in Bowling Green last summer, and they eventually drove us to the "nuclear option." We hired an exterminator who hosed down the inside and outside of the house with various chemicals. He told us to keep the dog outside for a few hours but seemed unconcerned about the kids. I guess kids don't eat off the floors or lick the base boards (as far as I know) and won't ingest too much of the poison. Both did fine in school, so I don't think there are any lasting effects.

When I drew back the curtains in the cabin's living room I sort of did a spit take. The mountains around Fontana are quite large, and I'm used to the low rising west Kentucky hill behind my house known as Copperhead Ridge. The hills around Fontana are real ridges and the one behind my house should be called "Copperhead Pile" compared to the ones in Carolina.

I think my first impressions of Fontana Village were wrong because I ended up really liking the place and hope to go back sometime. Part of my first impressions was right on and other parts were way off.

As I drove through the village in the daylight for the first time I got a haunting feel of one of the many coal camps I visited and photographed in the Kentucky mountains back in my environmental management days. The roads in the village were narrow and winding and many of the older cabins had uniform construction but placed at odd angles to the road, which is a compromise with the topography. I felt as if I had stumbled into Harlan County, Kentucky, or that the Tail of the Dragon kicked me off to eastern portion of my home state.

Later in the trip I learned how that first impression was nearly right on.

It seemed that every cabin was filled with people, and I was sort of turned off by the crowd. I later realized that it was Memorial Day weekend, which seems to bring out the travels who are hellbent to bring all of their stuff from home with them. They don't vacation. They bring home with them and change few of their habits, which seemed to include parking in the front yard and leaving laundry on the rails of their porches.

I had a very intense flashback to my days in east Kentucky when we walked down our road past a cabin with four or five people lounging on the front porch. I waved to them. They didn't wave back but stared until we were out of sight. If that happened to me once in the Kentucky mountains it happened a thousand times. I mean no insult, but it was a familiar feel to a veteran of working in the hills.

We spent a large portion of the day hiking the Lewellyn Cove Trail loop on Fontana Village's property. At least I think it is the village's property. I was a little concerned because 22 days before I was in surgery having a kidney stone removed and the trail was 3.5 miles long. I feared getting to the far point on the loop and not being able to go any further.

In April we took a guided "nature hike" in Mammoth Cave National Park back to a place called Cedar Sink. Along the way, the park ranger -- a beautiful young lady -- picked up this hideous looking millipede and told us that it was "an almond scented millipede." She cupped her hands over the creature and gave him a good shake. Sure enough, her hands smelled like almond extract. She told us that there was also a "cherry scented" millipede.

On our hike through Lewellyn Cove we found an almond scented one and later a cherry scented one. Dana scooped up the latter to give it a shake so we could smell the scent. While she was doing this I thought, "what if the park ranger at Mammoth Cave was a magician and tricked us and Dana was about to pick up a toxic millipede." That wasn't the case.

There's not much to say about the hike, but I could praise the beauty of the North Carolina mountains for pages and pages.

I fully realize that this song is not about North Carolina, but I had Michael Martin Murphy's song "Carolina in the Pines" in my head throughout the hike. I also realize that none of the peaks in Carolina reach above the tree line. I've been above the timberline in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, though. It's no place for a Southerner.

"And we'll talk of trails we've walked up
Far above the timberline
There are nights I only feel right
With Carolina in the pines"

I never really liked Murphy's version of the song, but Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver has a version of it that I listen to very often. No, I did not run calling "wildfire."

We spent the afternoon playing miniature golf at "Hillbilly Putt Putt" at Fontana Village. We cannot pass one of these places without my little boy begging to play a round. He's five, so it takes forever to play around, and he mixes a little hockey in with his putting. I never really know how to score one of the holes for him because he pushes the ball up the green like he's Mario Lemieux.

It irritates his sister. She wanted to stop him, but I told her "You better watch out. He might body check at the tee."

When I filled out our scorecard I used the names Kenny Perry, Annika Sorenstam, Michelle Wie, and Tiger Woods. I was Tiger and Parkman was Kenny. When he discovered his nom de links he protested. He pointed out that I was fat like Kenny Perry and he was skinny like Tiger Woods. I told him that I won rounds like Tiger. No offense to Mr. Perry, who lives just miles from my house in Kentucky and is one of the nicest people around.