Two Bars at Cade's Cove

Up until last year, when we wanted to go on a short trip of four or five days, we usually headed for the beach. We like the mountains, but given the choice between the two, we prefer the beach for short trips. Add to that, we have a son and his family who live near the beach and a daughter who has lived in Colorado for the past fifteen years where there are plenty of mountains.

But since COVID introduced itself, there were many places we either could not go, or they were not worth going to because of the restrictions. So, since last March it has been all short trips for us, and for variety we split our short trips between the beach and the Smokies.

Each time we go to the Smokies, we try to get into Cade’s Cove.

By try, I mean that if we see a line of cars before we get to Cade’s Cove, we turn around. I do not go to the mountains to see cars and people; I go to see nature. Websites say, “Allow two to four hours to drive the eleven-mile one-way loop.” I say, “Are you crazy?” There is no one alive who loves nature more than I do, but I think spending two to four hours to drive eleven miles in a bumper-to-bumper parade of cars to gaze at animals that are looking back at the parade of cars is nuts. I would much rather pick a random trail outside Cade’s Cove and take a leisurely hike and see whatever is there. Whatever it is, I can be sure it is going to be better than driving a loop at five miles or less an hour behind hundreds of other cars who stop every time they even think they have seen an animal.

That is backstory. Here is today’s story:

On New Year’s Eve we decided to walk the trail to Abram’s Falls. As we were about to drive into the park, I noticed that our gas tank was slipping from three bars to two. I mentioned that to my wife Kathy, and I added that it should be no problem because we can easily get sixty miles on two bars. I know that because we have done it several times. I am one of those people who does not pull into a gas station until I am at two bars and maybe one. I know that is not recommended, and out West and once in Florida, I have done some sweating before I found a gas station, but I am probably not going to change at this point in my life unless I am out West. Since I have only sweated once in Florida, I am still going to continue betting on two bars there.

It was a breeze driving into Cade’s Cove. There were not many cars, and they were moving at good pace, but no more than a quarter mile into the cove, traffic began moving at a snail’s pace. I could have crawled on my hands and knees faster. I then began thinking about that “two to four hours” recommendation: if the lead car is going to take two to four hours to look for animals, that means we will have to take the same amount of time as he does whether we want to or not, unless he pulls off the road and every other car in front of us thinks like I do, which is not likely.

Next, I began thinking that driving slow burns less gas than driving fast, but how much gas am I going to burn almost idling for eleven miles? There were two short cuts before Abram's Falls that I could have taken to get off the loop before, but I did not want to flush the time down the drain that I had committed to get to Abram’s Fall’s, so I kept driving.

I learned one thing while sweating the gas bars: people drive through the loop at a pace inversely proportionate to the number of animals they see.

There were no animals on the loop that day, so they drove slower, hoping to see something. We have always seen deer and turkeys early on the loop, but we were not seeing any this time. The farther we drove, the slower the line of cars moved. People in those cars in front of us must have been straining their eyes to catch even a glimpse of an animal, and they did not want to leave the cove without seeing something.

When we got to the Abram’s Fall’s Trailhead, we were at one bar, and we were at about the halfway point to the end of the loop. We spent an enjoyable two hours on the trail and at the falls. That trip will be memorable, and not just because of the beauty of the falls-- snowmelt had softened the trail, and one of my boots got too close to the edge. When I stopped sliding down the bluff, I was about eight or nine feet down and looking straight up.

Even though there were hundreds of people in cars on the loop, there were only a few dozen on the trail. About a half dozen of those people had gathered at the top of the bluff and seemed to be entertained by my attempts to get traction on the muddy bluff. I asked Kathy if she could find a stick to pull me up, but a kind man got down on the ground and extended his hand over the bluff and pulled me up before she had to find one. Those are the things that makes me know I am alive; mishaps are among my fondest memories. But if that bluff was fifty feet down, I might not be alive to remember anything else.

When we got back to the car, unsurprisingly the gas tank was still at one bar. I began driving and continued sweating.

When we got to the far side of the loop, we were in areas where both sides of the road were banked, so there were no pull-off areas. I began imagining running out of gas and the drivers in the parade of cars behind us, all honking their horns because they could not move until gas was delivered to us.

We still had not seen any animals except for the two squirrels Kathy saw on her side of the car. While I was staring at the remaining bar, we did engage in conversation other than how close we were to running out of gas-- mostly about how disappointed all those people in the parade of cars must have been to have invested so much time to Cade’s Cove and not seen any wildlife. I also mentioned to Kathy that websites say that there were never any Native American settlements in Cade’s Cove. She immediately said she did not believe it. Kathy’s a smart cookie. She has found hundreds of arrowheads, so she knows that an area with an abundance of water like Cade’s Cove would have been attractive to Native Americans. Sure, the Cherokee only hunted there, but there was a ten-thousand year plus history of Native Americans in Tennessee before there was a tribe called Cherokee. The websites were wrong. Kathy was right.

I kept driving and a couple miles before I got to the end of the loop, I told Kathy, “I hope we don’t see any animals now. Those people in front of us are going to be so happy to see one, they are going to get out of their cars and take pictures for a long time. We need to get off this road and get some gas.” Sure enough, just as we got close to the end of the loop, the cars in front of us completely stopped and almost everyone got out of their cars to take pictures. When they finally got back in their cars and the parade of cars moved far enough, we saw it: a deer. It looked just like the one that visits our neighborhood most nights. But this one was a Cade’s Cove deer.

I was probably driving on fumes, but I made it to a gas station.

It was a great day and we made a lot of memories.