Tom, Marion and the Hair Cut

August 8, 2022                                                         Most Recent Posts:
Bear Den Family Campground                       Linville and Dugger’s Creek Falls
On the Blue Ridge Parkway                                Wish I’d Had a Mycologist
Spruce Pine, North Carolina

I drove down off the mountain again today to Marion where it was 80 degrees and humid.  It really felt hot.  Very different from up on the mountain.

On my way I stopped at the second nearest waterfall known as Tom’s Creek. It’s an 80 foot multi tiered cascade in the Pisgah National Forest just outside of Marion. 

I parked Ruby along the road and when walking to the trailhead discovered that there were designated parking spots.  That there were several cars already here alerted me to the fact that I would not have this falls to myself.  This is rather a fact in August, the month more people are on vacation than any other in the year. 

I decided to walk back to Ruby and move her off the road.  But when I got there she would not start and I had parked her too closely behind another car also parked on the edge, to roll her and pop the clutch.  Same problem as at Lake Toxaway that I’d thought I’d had fixed.  Now what?  I decided not to let it ruin my hike and and went back to the trail head.

The hike is not long and when I arrived, Grandpa, Grandma, daughter and grandson were there.  Gpa and Ma are fulltimers workcamping pretty permanently at a Gem mining place nearby until they go to Bushnell in Florida for January and February. 

He talked constantly and took my mind off Ruby.  But there was nothing close to  spiritual or communing with nature happening here today though the falls were wonderful. 

I took pictures of the falls despite all GPa’s talking and my attempts not to be rude.  Turns out the 3 videos I tried to shoot were all on their sides.  Apparently I wasn’t paying enough  attention.  So much for being able to listen and chew gum.

  I need to come back here when the distractions aren’t so intense.  I finally had to leave to stop him from talking.  No idea how long they stayed.  I think I was entertaining him for the two women in his life.  I took no pictures of them because it seemed very rude to point my camera at them and no real reason to.

I would like to come back and just be here in this really lovely spot but I’m afraid that because the trail is not long and the location so accessible, it would be difficult to be here with just the sounds and sights of nature.

So I’ll just put lots of pictures of them from various distances.

One last shot of the rocky stream bed.

When I got back to Ruby, I was relieved to see the car in front of me had gone and I could now roll her down the hill.  But when I got in, she started right up.  What’s going on?  If I drive her and stop and start her up before she cools down then she didn’t start but after she cooled down she did?  I thought I’d had this fixed.  Guess I have to be careful where I park now.

My second reason for coming to Marion was to get a haircut.  My hair had kept falling in my eyes on my long hike yesterday and I’d had enough of it.  Great Clips does not take reservations and when I arrived there was a 2 hour wait at 11:40am.  I did some shopping at Dollar Tree and Walmart which were right there.  Ruby started up 3rd time in a row (guess that blows my theory)  so I went to Sharon’s Cafe, the most highly rated restaurant in Marion, and had their taco salad special with sour cream in a plastic tube. 

Definitely a local place both outside and inside.

The taco salad was iceberg lettuce on top of some sort of burger meat on top of a handful of corn chips.  Sour Cream tube is at the top of my plate.

No rave review from me.  I guess the locals like the prices or there is something else on the menu I should have had.  Wish I had Laurel here to tell me where to eat in this town.  The best part of the meal was the interesting book I was reading.  It’s called No Place for the Weary Kind:  Women of the Smokies and offers a history of the Great Smoky Mountains through the lives of women who loved and shaped the land over several hundred years.

I made it back to Great Clips in time.  The haircut Crystal gave me  looked nothing like the picture I showed her of the cut I wanted but it’s shorter, out of my eyes and cost $17 with tip as opposed to $60 in Charlottesville.  The proof will be in how it grows out.

I like the “before” better.  Not sure it will ever become a “great clip”.

          Before                                                               After

On the way back to Bear Den, I stopped at another overlook on the Parkway to see Table Rock Mountain.  

Not sure I’ll get over there to hike it.   It’s on the east rim of Linville Gorge and they say the views are spectacular.  Even my zoom doesn’t see any teeny tiny people up there.