The original plan for my trip to the Smokies was to spend the entire week in the mountains.  The Smoky Mountains are known for their beauty and diverse plant life – something like 130 different types of tree live in the Smokies.  However, after a full day of hiking and two nights of camping in the high humidity I was having second thoughts. I burned myself out on the hike up to Rocky Top because I went way to fast.  Now, the day after that hike, I was feeling the consequences of it.  My feet hurt and my legs were sore. I had no desire to hike back up to the AT, so I made a decision to leave the Smokies in search of other adventures.

I love to travel.  If you’ve read any of my other blog posts you’ll know about my Coin Flip Road Trip where I set out on a drive, without a definitive destination. I’m very comfortable making decisions on the fly, so I decided to do it again.  No coin flipping, but instead looking at a map (thank you Google maps) and just driving to random places on the East Coast.  I am well aware that this type of spontaneity would not be possible without the internet. The idea of completely changing your plans, on the fly, while in the middle of no where, just wasnt possible 20 years ago unless you planned way ahead (for example, buying a map for each state you’ll be traveling through would have been required).  So with my magical spontaneity machine in my hand (aka my iPhone) I set out towards South Carolina.

Why South Carolina? Pretty simple actually, I’ve never been there. I’ve been to a lot of states. Before this trip began it was 43 to be exact. But Carolinas weren’t one of them.  Part of my excitement hiking on the AT in the Smokies was I could have one foot in Tennessee and the other in North Carolina.  I realize some people may not consider this “being in North Carolina,” but I submit that there’s a strange feeling when it comes to being in two places at once.  I realize this is just a man made construct of two places, but I was both in Tennessee and North Carolina at the same time. You don’t get to do that often, so it was pretty cool to reflect on.

Anyway, I packed up my tent and set out through North Carolina towards Sumter National Forest.  Sumter National Forest carries the same name of the battle that kicked off the Civil War, they were both named for the same person.  I didnt realize it at the time, but I’d be spending a lot of this trip following the Civil War.  The funny thing is, this National Forest is no where near Fort Sumter.  In fact, it would take you more than 4 hours to drive the distance between the two.  Sumter National Forest is split between two areas. The first is in the center of the state.  The one I was headed to was on the western edge of the state – the two areas are separated by 100 miles.  There are actually three different “districts” within Sumter National Forest, none of which touch each other.  This makes no sense to me. Why not just name them three different National Forests and cut down on the confusion? I’ll just add that to the list of things that I dont understand about our National Forests, right along with how they can lose $15 million SELLING trees in one year.

The drive to Sumter took me through Cherokee, NC. Cherokee is the HQ for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. Eastern Band is the nice way of saying the ones we didn’t force out of their native lands through the Trail of Tears.  After looking up how they managed to avoid the forced removal with the rest of the Cherokee, I am again reminded how little regard we held for the indigenous people throughout the history of the US. One man led a small revolt and literally gave his life to allow for his followers to stay on the land they should have owned anyway.  He was executed by the US Army and in exchange, the people of what’s now called the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation got to stay.

Now that you feel really bad to be an American, let’s get back to my trip through North Carolina. I drove through small towns which were really quiet lovely. There are some really rich communities in western NC, surrounded by a lot of really poor ones.  You can see the differences as you take back roads from town to town.  Eventually I made my way across the state border into South Carolina and Sumter National Forest.