A Blast from the Past

Sunday, 8/27/2023

We had cereal for breakfast for the first time in over two weeks - a luxury! We packed up at the camp, cleaned up, and left a donation for the children of the camp directors to have some ice cream.

We drove 15 minutes the town of Claypool Springs and attended the Bible church there for Sunday school. I had hoped that “Grandfather” Carl Tiegler could tell stories about my Grandpa Paul. He remembered him as “always busy,“ but had no other specifics.

We met many of the Tiegler family members and a few others before the class. Both of us were definitely underdressed! We really enjoyed the class on Romans chapter 3. The church was the epitome of down-home, old-fashioned Christianity - KJV, pledge to the US flag, Christian flag, and the Bible. Brian‘s father knew a bit more about Grandpa Paul. We enjoyed the hymns, stories, and class participation. We took off on the road after Sunday school.

We have now driven 4539 on the trip!

Today, we took back roads, struggling to find the right road, which was not self-evident. We took a long route via the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park area. We were both surprised at the uninterrupted nice road, beauty, overviews, intermittent, rain, high altitude (over 6000 feet), and how it goes on and on. Very impressive!!

We arrived in Cherokee at our very teeny, tiny Airbnb home to find the driveway impassable - construction was taking place. We had barely settled in before the Swensons arrived with Subway, chips and fruit. We ate on our crowded balcony. The sunset was stunning! We took Porsche on a walk up the hill and caught some great photos.

We tried to sleep in the crowded downstairs bed as we didn’t fit upstairs, but that didn’t work terribly well. Porsche chose the upstairs bed. We got used to the tiny home, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone over 5 foot five and 140 pounds.