The Velo Hobo

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Tsali Recreation Area is only about 12 miles from our back door. It’s named after a Cherokee leader who refused relocation via the Trail of Tears. He and his band of followers hid in the mountains of Western North Carolina until their capture by the government. Sometime later he was executed by firing squad.

The government was so moved by his bravery they decided to build a monument to his name. First they built a hydro-electric dam and flooded his ancestral home creating Fontana Lake. Then the government took axe in hand and cleared away some useless and unsightly old growth forest. In its place they created a campground with miles of single track mountain bike trails, an information kiosk, boat ramps, paved parking lot and a multi-hundred dollar cinderblock two-seat outhouse complete with hand sanitizer dispensers and those really big rolls of toilet paper. Nice.

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Construction of the worlds’ best bicycling road (okay, in my opinion) began in September 1935 at Cumberland Knob near the North Carolina and Virginia state line and was completed in 1983. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’, in an effort to provide jobs to the unemployed of the Great Depression, ripped a 469-mile long asphalt gash in the mountainside linking the Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. But hell, it’s already there so why not make the most of it. The Velo Hobo

About 100 native tree species can be found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s more than in all of northern Europe. Over 800 miles of hiking trails weave their way through one of the largest blocks of old-growth temperate deciduous forest in North America.

The name ‘Smoky Mountains’ comes from rain and evaporation from trees creating smoke-like fog that clings to the mountain tops. On the high peaks of the Smokies, an average of 85 inches of rain falls each year, making these upper elevation areas temperate rain forests.

And the best place to stay to enjoy the park is Bryson City, North Carolina.

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