Survival and Emergency Preparedness

I'm in GSMNP as of last Wednesday until next Tuesday doing some sight seeing and hiking.

Yup hiking...been 7 weeks since my knee replacement but my wife planned this trip to get me out of the house, among other things. Hiked to Laural falls (2 mile round trip) yesterday and then Klingman's dome today. My knee was pretty tired but not sore. We also hiked about a mile on the Appalachian trail today. Haven't been here since 2018.

Oh and my son called and said his wife is pregnant. Our first grandchild. Due in October.

Oh wow - what a great post. Enjoy your blessings, amigo.

Did 3 hikes today. Saw 3 bears and some deer...kinda like being at the woods house at home..

New knee seems to be holding up, though the rest of me is kinda outta shape.

Having a great trip. GSMNP is beautiful. Pics when I get home next week.

Nice to get out and about after spending 7 weeks at home recovering.

So the reason we're here is because my wife got free hotel rooms. Never been here before where we weren't camping.

Only thing is we have to sit through a couple time share presentations. Thanks dear. Apparently it seemed like a good idea to her at the time.

Fortunately we don't do those kind of vacations so we can say no but they do have very compelling sales pitches. One down. One to go.

Camping for the bride is the Hilton on generators...
Enjoy, but don't BUY
friend went thru a time-sharing nightmare.

tom mac wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 9:42 am Camping for the bride is the Hilton on generators...
Enjoy, but don't BUY
friend went thru a time-sharing nightmare.

Well, we looked at TSs but it doesn’t fit our life style. We pretty much do adventure /camping trips or cruises. Not to mention the Florida house and/or the woods house. We don't stay in resorts or hotels very often.

Just getting ready to head out and hike the Appalachian trail again.

We're back...hiked 3 trails today, 6 miles total. We'd normally do 6 miles at a time but with the new knee we're doing shorter trails. Even so, 6 miles in one day on my new knee is pretty good. I'm very happy with it. Doing pretty well with it.

Temps we're in the 40s yesterday and today in the morning,, 50s in the afternoon after being in the 80s , Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Heading home tomorrow (Tues).

We hiked 4.6 miles today, up to Alum cave and back. Good hike. Very tired.

Also went to a time share pitch by Hilton. Our sales guy , after hearing what we're about said, "i don't think this is for you". "Cool, bye" said us...they had put us up in a Hilton for 3 nights.

Blue-Green vacations was the first pitch on Saturday. Very hard sell, but we walked. They put us up in a Sleep Inn for 3 nights.

If you traveled a lot and stayed in resorts and hotels, these "vacation clubs" might be something interesting to you. We don't do that so not so much for us, though we were interested in seeing what they offered and how they worked.

The way these things work now is you buy a time share worth a certain number of points a year. You can then spend those points wherever and whenever throughout the year. Wherever the company has resorts you can use. You also get discounts on related travel expenses.

The benefits are that you own a deed to a piece of property. The points that it represents can be used and/or passed down to your heirs. They can use the points forever and the prices they represent are locked in/good forever. Also you can roll over points from year to year or borrow points from next year to fund a trip this year.

The negative is that there is an annual maintenance fee $1200-1700/year forever whether you use it or not. Depending on how many points you want the cost is $20-40k. Of course if you "buy today" they give you double points and other discounts and incentives.

In the first pitch we said no 3 times and the the price dropped 3 times and the points tripled. We still walked. The Hilton pitch the guy didn't even try to haggle. He just said "Thanks for coming, bye".

We're home. About a 9 hour drive with construction and accidents along the way.

Some highlights included a parade of Ford Broncos on Friday. Had to have been at least a couple hundred of them. We later learned that this was the annual Broncos Owners Rally East April 18-21. Most were the new ones but there were plenty of original vintage ones as well as 80-90's "Big Broncos" and Bronco IIs. I had a Big Bronco back in the day. My brother has one of the new ones. We continued to see Broncos all over Pigeon Forge & Gatlinberg, though we were staying out of those towns in Sevierville. I think the rally was actually in Townsend but we saw Bronco's everywhere we went the rest of the time we were there including the national park. Didn't even think to take pictures.

We also saw some bears. One crossed the road right in front of us while driving in the park and we saw 3 bears and 4 deer in Cades Cove.

As for my knee. It got plenty of exercise and was sore at the end of the day. But...it was stable walking on the uneven, rock and root strewn trails. Felt pretty good overall to be able to hike on it. I was using hiking poles for stability.

The biggest thing I noticed was going down hill. The last couple decades (including our hike on the Inca Trail) going downhill on that knee was excruciatingly painful. Much harder and painful than going up hill. First time since forever my knee didn't hurt going down hill.

Some pics