Hopefully it's not become passe' to well-wish a member on here. We have several who have family on the East Coast. I'm just now arriving home from a trip to VA that was cut short and just flat turned around 180.
I know JR has family there in Charleston. Smart folks, I'm sure and probably aren't making a party out of it all.
It's a big deal. When I turned around I ended up going through the Park for no other reason other than to ogle the carnage. Happy to see that it's pretty much recovered. Here's a picture of us on Clingman's that day [ us ]. Total whiteout of clouds. The Ranger said it was a different kind of beauty. I asked him if he had chicken fingers...the good kind.
There were other folks at the base of the mountain at the Indian restaurant down there that were talking about it still being a Cat 2 HERE in the parking lot. And I was like y'all are nuts. I'm a card-toting 1/16th Cherokee, and never heard of this, yet this guy is pointing to the creek- and this dude is whiter than I am and has an enormous bald noggin.
I still think they are hysterical or the fantastical types. Then in a matter of a few hours, you see everything change into a "you know what, I read about this in Middle School. Ole D.D. Eisenhower made this possible."
It's a beautiful system and I'm happy to observe it in action- they seem to be slightly more organized now in terms of getting ahead of shit. That said, I'd just nuke it. I've nuked many a 5 gallon bucket in my day and well, none of them reassembled into a 5 gallon bucket.
This one's gonna be a doozie and I hope everybody's gonna be alright. Shoot at it if you want to- give that thing a piece of your mind.
I'm kind of an ass, so will also be thinking about the barometric pressure dropping below 28. But y'all too. And them.