Smokemont Campground, Smoky Mountains National Park

July 2, 3 (Days 2 & 3)

Elevation: 2,200 feet

Weather: Nice and hot during day; cozy in your sleeping bags at night

America’s national parks are gems in its crooked national crown. Teddy Roosevelt, with his rough riding and long walks with befuddled foreign dignitaries in tow, is the father of the park system, or at least from the president’s office. He established 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks, and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land.

I always think of John Muir who lashed himself to one of the highest branches of one of the tallest redwoods he could find and then sat there during a lightning storm, being tossed back and forth like a top at sea. My kind of guy, or more accurately, I was enthralled by him and his stories as a youth and so he was the guy I’ve always wanted to be.

Camping in this country’s great wilderness goes even further back, to Henry David Thoreau, and his sparse cabin at Walden Pond where he divined some of this country’s greatest verse. Farther back still, to the settler/invaders, carried across the Atlantic in scurvy infested boats, onto the shores of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where they failed miserably for a while, spreading germs and so much else to the new world. In any case, they were a type of camper as well.

As I look around this campsite, I’m reminded of just how white that history is. I don’t see any brown or black skin here beneath the trees, with multi-colored tents sprouted up like wild mushrooms. A friend of mine studied this: that African Americans don’t tend to camp or go to the national parks because they don’t see it as part of their history, their culture. This seems about right. America is strapped up by these historical paths, with different people pretty much staying in their lanes. Shame, because being out in nature like this is a gift that everyone should have a chance to enjoy.

I seem to remember that this is changing; that the parks have tried to be more inclusive in placards and historical notes. It is also such a broad generalization that, while still compelling, it needs to be nuanced by the counter examples like Wayne who I met at a camper store. Wayne is from Georgia (but not Atlanta) and has a thick southern accent; lots of “ya’ alls” and the like. He was gearing up for a camping trip to the Smoky Mountains as well. He had a big white F-150 (I refuse to translate what that is for my foreign friends), a camper, and was bursting and grinning about getting up into the woods. He was going up for a week with his family.  He was going to hike, make campfires, roast marshmallows. He was ready to go. He was a camper. Just like me and so he had found a way to tangle himself into that history and enjoy the great outdoors, despite the fact that even the parks had neglected his history and his place in this country.

Covid. Well, there are no rangers about. Usually you have to sit in line at the ranger station where they tell you which campsite is yours, warn you about the bears, and generally keep order. No one at the station. Just a printed sheet of white paper informing people to go directly to their campsite. No one is wearing masks, but each campsite is separated by at least 30 feet. Silvia used the bathrooms and so I decided to as well. Then I told her that maybe we should be more careful, bringing the bucket of wipes with us and wiping everything down before we do our business. She then told me that she didn’t touch anything but the door handle, squatting, surely elegantly, to do her biz. With mixed up parents like this, who knows what the kids have been doing . . .