Real Mountain Camping

After almost running out of gas and finally escaping the Blue Ridge Parkway, we chose a free campsite in Highlands, NC, called Blue Valley Dispersed Campground that had great reviews online. It was three miles up a dirt road and had a scenic waterfall hike as a nearby attraction. It’s taking some time for us to get into the swing of things so that we’re not stressing to set up camp before sundown, but I think after some trial and error we’ll have it down pat soon. Dan experimentally drove our convoy through the mountains for a ways until we decided it would be best to let me take the helm until we hit flat land again. This trip is his first experience towing a trailer, and I commend him for a valiant first effort even though it made me quite nervous. A rule was established: no mid-road U-turns. Or U-turns at all with a trailer, for that matter.

Our little misfit band approached the campsite around 8pm, and we only saw one other tent camper in the area. Throughout our three days there we saw quite a few cars go up the opposite dirt road, but not many come back down. We drove up that way to discover a few campsites, but no explanation as to where those cars went. Maybe there’s a car-eating mountain beast. I had packed the camper in a more logical way the previous night which made unpacking a breeze, and by time darkness fell we managed to set up the propane stove kitchen. Dan is an accomplished cook and seems to be able to make fantastic meals from meager ingredients. We’re going to publish another section of the blog with some of his on-the-spot easy camp recipes.

First-time campfire cooking. Juno supervised.

The cats were enjoying themselves romping around the camper as we ate. Occasionally we heard a dull thud as medicine ball-esque Oscar descended from bunk to floor, and we could see Bartleby’s shadow-puppet dance through the canvas as he chased wayward mosquitoes. Tag-a-long cat (we have yet to officially name her) guarded my bed from her curious companions with an impressive show of hissing that she just couldn’t back with her six-pound scrappy frame. Luckily the other cats regard her much the same as any other inanimate human-toy strewn about the camper.

Piper, Juno, and Rosie were tied up outside since it was dark and we were being cautious of bears and other wildlife. As always, we stowed any dirty dishes and food in airtight containers inside the car, even though our canvas camper is filled with warm, fuzzy, tasty pet snacks. When it was time to bunker down the cats went in their cages and we brought the large crate in for Rosie to sleep in since she couldn’t be trusted not to cause mischief while we slept. The dogs were cuddling by my feet, and Dan was listening to his choice podcast on the opposite bunk, and then things began to get graphic. And stinky. If you’re squeamish you should probably skip the next paragraph, as it’s pretty disgusting.

I don’t know if you’re ever though about what happens when a goat vomits. Probably not, but I hope you never have to experience it. Especially in a ten-foot-long camper. Technically it’s not vomiting since goats have a rumen before the true stomach; it’s called slinging cud. Basically it is half-digested plant matter that has been chewed, regurgitated, and re-chewed. Most of the time Rosie politely burps it into her mouth to continue her process, but this time she had eaten something that didn’t agree with her. The retching was awful and painful to watch, and when it came up she shook her head, causing projectile fountain-splatters of green gobs of gross gook to cover everything within four feet of the cage. Plant shrapnel marred the canvas curtains, the wooden paneling, my suitcase, the floor, towels, blankets, and anything else within reach. And she continued this for an hour. We didn’t want to put her outside for fear of becoming a bear snack, so I covered the kennel with towels to contain some of the carnage. The smell was horrific. I knew that Rosie had probably eaten something toxic, and I was scared she was going to die. Her eyes looked intermittently frantic and alternately glazed, and she eventually laid down and wasn’t really moving much. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to sleep, but I didn’t want her to sleep because I wouldn’t be able to tell if she was conscious.

Dan asked if we could or should give her pepto, or if we had any baking soda available. I didn’t think I had packed baking soda, and wasn’t sure if pepto was safe for goats. The GPS said there was a Walmart about twelve miles down the mountain, so Dan volunteered to drive and get some baking soda while I stayed with the poor goat and the rest of the pets who, to their credit, were behaving well and staying still and quiet. Avoiding the splatter zone of plant matter, I made my way to the cage door to offer Rosie some water and pat her on the sides to hopefully settle her stomach and help her burp. Although that cud-slinging was disgusting, I figured it was safer for her to get it out of her system even if that meant more mess. An hour passed and Rosie’s plight seemed to be calming down even though I still couldn’t get her to drink any water. She seemed to appreciate my burping efforts and eventually I felt that she was ok to goto sleep if she wanted. I went back to my bed to watch and worry, and realized that Dan should have been back from the baking soda run.

The mountain roads were dark, steep, curvy, and partly unpaved, and I was concerned that in his hurry Dan may have flipped the car over the edge of the mountain. This was the second night in a row that I was left with no cell signal to wonder if I would ever see my friend again. After yet another dragging hour in a stinking camper that I could not escape for fear of bears, Dan returns with a harrowing story of his mountain plight. Our ignorant GPS took him on a wild goose chase across a mountain range to a Walmart that didn’t exist, and then to a second Walmart nearby that in fact was the same location as the original nonexistent Walmart. This being a small mountain town, nothing else within forty miles was open besides one gas station that had no baking soda, and one which at long last did. The old man at the counter was unfazed by Dan’s frantic demeanor, and failed to return the quarter in change owed from the transaction. Hurrying back up the forty miles of winding roadway and three miles of twisting gravel, Dan arrived with the baking soda that Rosie refused to take.

Relieved that he hadn’t careened off the side of a cliff and thankful for the remedy, I attempted to administer water and baking soda but Rosie absolutely refused me getting anywhere near her mouth. I ended up just putting the baking soda and water in the crate with her and trying to make it to sleep for the night. As we settled in and I mentioned to Dan that she had stopped retching about an hour previously, she started up again. This time for around fifteen minutes or so and then she seemed to have the toxin out of her system enough to calm down and sleep.

In the morning as I was attempting to pry dried goat vomit from the wooden paneling, I heard Dan utter a yell of frustration. While getting a granola bar from the Element, Dan found the box of baking soda that I had packed after all. We decided there was nothing left to do but laugh. That seems to be our answer to any of the stresses that we come across on the trip. Why do anything but be happy in spite of it all? This little bit of wisdom was difficult to remember when scrubbing cemented stinky plant matter from impossible places. Rosie has temporarily been demoted to outdoor crated goat until we have a better cleanup protocol. She acquired a new tree as tie-out buddy that isn’t surrounded by tasty toxic ferns (which after some Googling seems to have been the culprit).

Here's a picture of our pretty little stream instead of a picture of the previous paragraph.

The rest of the day was spent pretty domestically. There’s a stream near the campsite that I believe is a small offshoot of the Nantahala River. That particular river is perpetually cold, at about 50 degrees (F) all year. This made for some very refreshing bathtime, although Dan chose to heat his water on the fire. We used his leftover bathwater to do some laundry, and I took the goat-refuse-sodden towels to the river and weighed them down to the bottom with rocks to let nature’s washing machine do its job. It took a couple hours to successfully complete our small bit of laundry, but eventually we had everything wrung and hung to dry. Unfortunately we didn’t foresee that the humidity would render the clothes wet and mildewey three days later, making our efforts in vain and requiring us to carry around trashbags full of wet, stinky, moldy, heavy laundry until such time as we could find a Laundromat. I also did the dishes in the river and enjoyed watching the minnows nibble at the leftover bits of ramen floating down the stream. Someone had previously left a little stick raft by the bank, and it was quite a peaceful and picturesque way to do housework, which I generally can’t abide.

The reviews of the campsite had mentioned a short waterfall hike on up the road a ways. Rosie wasn’t invited to hike with us because we were still concerned about toxic plants (the NC mountains are filled with rhodedendron, which is highly toxic to goats), and the cats haven’t yet been leash trained so it was just Dan, Piper, Juno, and me. We didn’t see a single person or animal on the whole hike. It was maybe a mile, mile and a half up some switchbacks to the top of the mountain peak to get to Glen Falls. Although I tend to be the hiker and Dan has until now been a city-dwelling tobacco chimney, he did much better at the whole breathing thing. I was quite winded but managed to keep pace most of the time. When we got to the top Dan stopped for a Newport and I snapped this picture.

"Newport: the hiker's cigarette!"

 Glen Falls

Since no other people were around and we saw no posted leash rules the dogs were allowed to run around. They had a blast gallivanting in the water and splashing mud all over me. Even Juno, who until that day had a deep distaste for any body of water, was splashing about and chasing leaves as they spiraled down the stream. The waterfall itself wasn’t terribly impressive, but it was a waterfall nonetheless. I guess millions of gallons of water pouring over rocks for hundreds of years is always somewhat impressive, no matter how large the fall is.

The third morning we had planned to leave our peaceful little mountain habitat, and I awoke groaning to the sound of heavy rain on the canvas. It always sounds like a massive rainstorm from inside the camper even in a slight rain, but this was a downpour. Although the sound of rain is pleasant for sleeping in, it’s not pleasant for packing up. Luckily I had taken in the wet hanging laundry when rain threatened the night before, even though I knew that wouldn’t help the mildew smell any. We decided to get a move on regardless of our wet things, although it may have been a less smelly situation if we had just waited another day for everything to dry. Packing up wet items and canvas into a tightly enclosed space with already-mildewed laundry and then driving in the sun for six hours makes for a smell similar to what I might imagine Primordial Soup would be like. It seems the theme for this site boils down to one word: smelly.

As this has been an excessively long post, I’ll end it here as we depart from Highlands, NC, and head to Nashville, TN for a brief stopover. I’m a couple stops behind on updating, but since then we’ve made it all the way to New Orleans, and will be departing here tomorrow for a Llama refuge farm in Harper, TX, Be sure to check out some of the older posts, since I’ve been updating some of the pictures. See you on the flip side!