Tsali - Part 3

Saturday morning was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the air was fresh and clear, with a nice breeze whispering lazily through the trees in the campground. I had planned to cook my own food for the trip and even made the commitment to buy my first camping stove...a nice Coleman job, handcrafted under duress and threat of financial blackballing in China and pedaled for a comparative pennies-on-the-dollar price at Wally-World. My first time in a Wal-Mart in years...I mean YEARS. What a hole. I'd kill myself if I lived in a small Appalachian town and had to shop there because the damn place had driven all my local merchants to bankruptcy.

-

-
I had been warned though, by Caroline the day before, that the trails were muddy, and that the going would be sloppy and gooey and that I'd need proper nourishment if I was to enjoy my day... OK, hogwash to that, somebody said," hey lets go to the Village and get some breakfast!"...at which point we dropped everything and did just that!
-

-
At the Nantahala Village parking lot, we noticed this little beauty in the parking lot of the restaurant. A nice mid-seventies Datsun 260Z, with a host of mod-rod tweaks to make the little beastie all the more entertaining on the twistie local roads. We all oggled the neat little classic for a few minutes before somebody said, "hey, isn't that one of those Nissan GT-R's over there?" Well, yup. Oops. I still like the classic over the modern...and I'd say that judging by our reaction, Nissan has gone the wrong way with the new car by moving so far away from the recipe for the old.
-

-
After the day on the trail, One lap of Mouse and two laps of Thompson, a sum of about 25 or so miles, we retired back to the campsite for some food and beers, and some unfinished business. Utahdog needs a tennis ball.
-

-
The water level was reassuringly high this time, with none of the exposed shoreline rings so prevalent in pictures from my last trip. The lake level was all the way up, and the shoreline looked refreshing and peaceful. A good place to play tennis ball with an old loyal friend.
-


-
Until next time Utes... When I bring you another ball!

-