Stranded In the Forest & the Interloper

It should come as no surprise that a couple days into our dispersed camping in Nantahala National Forest, the nighttime temperatures hovered in the teens. Once again the diesel heater came into use at night and in the morning. On our third morning, the diesel heater threw an error code indicating low voltage. We quickly tried to start the engine. No luck even though all of the dash lights came on.

Ugh! Having AAA doesn’t do any good if there is no way to reach them. Cell reception is non-existent in this forest. I volunteered to walk out of the forest until I could get a signal. My best guess was an hour’s walk tops. As luck would have it, a car was driving towards me after only 15 minutes of walking. He seemed hesitant to stop but did and did have jumper cables.

Tim was on his way to look for amethyst. I could see why he was searching for gems there. But was kind enough to drive back to our campsite. Everywhere I looked there were interesting rocks. The forest road glittered. We saw large and small lumps of quartz all over. Below are a couple of the interesting rocks I saw. I couldn’t get good pictures of the sparkly rocks on the road.

Unfortunately, the jump was unsuccessful and now the starter was making a racket.

We decided to walk out together this time. We both brought our backpacks with some water and little else. Four hours later we finally got a cell signal strong enough to make a phone call. We had walked mostly uphill for 8.5 miles!

The town we walked to is at 4118 ft elevation.

Because of the unique situation (van in the woods, us somewhere else) and the time, (5:30 pm), AAA advised me to call back tomorrow when we knew what shop we wanted to have the van towed to.

Once again I was reminded of my benchmark road trip in 1999. We were on the highway in Texas on the way to New Mexico when we got a flat tire. I had a cell phone, but there was no reception. A truck driver pulled over and offered to put on our spare. He was told that the spare was flat too. No worries he assured us. He had an air compressor and could inflate our spare tire. Much to his astonishment my friend told him the spare had a hole.

He drove us to the next gas station, which happened to be in New Mexico. I called AAA in New Mexico, only to be told that they couldn’t help us because the car was in Texas. Finally, we managed to get it worked out. I can’t remember the details.

Back to our current dilemma.

It’s evening, we haven’t eaten since breakfast, it’s getting cold and our home (van) is 8.5 miles away in the woods. We are not walking back. And what would be the point since we can’t make arrangements for help there.

Fortunately, the shopping plaza we were at had a grocery store where we bought a phone charger since we didn’t think we would need to bring one, and a Mexican restaurant where we ate dinner and figured out our next steps. Knowing that once again our monthly budget was blown, I ordered margaritas. They were huge. Since we rarely drink, we were feeling them halfway through.

During dinner, I found one hotel within walking distance that had rooms available. After dinner, we walked to the Highlander Mountain House, the silver lining to this whole situation. At first, it didn’t seem to be because the door that was the entrance said closed and all of the lights were off. After walking around the establishment we finally tried to door and found it unlocked. To the left was the bar and to the right was the front desk behind which sat a young woman.

Her name was Hannah and she was absolutely delightful. She gave us our key and we took our backpacks to our room in the “Bunkhouse” behind the main building. I fell in love with the room and could have moved right in. It was small, but bigger than the van after all.

We went back to the bar where Hannah gave us two glasses of wine on the house. We had told her our tale of woe. She told us about the hotel and offered to tour some of the rooms in the main building. It was so much fun. We got another ill-advised glass of wine and settled into the den where there is apparently always a fire going. There was a David Bowie coffee table book that we spent the evening leafing through before retiring to our room for the night.

The room spun for me that night. I woke up with my first hangover in over 7 years. And there is nothing like putting on your dirty clothes after taking your first shower in almost 3 weeks.

I made a call to the wonderful folks at Karr Automotive that had just replaced our engine. I was assured that it was not likely the starter, but instead the battery. The day was looking up.

We checked out and headed to the coffee shop to call AAA and figure out how to get back to our van. The tow truck driver that was dispatched agreed to pick us up. We enjoyed talking to him on the way there. And the best part of the whole thing was that he hooked up a jump start to the van battery and had us up and running within minutes. No new battery was required.

If only the story ended on that happy note.

After returning from our errands, picking up a package, and grocery shopping in a nearby city, we discovered that in our one-night absence, we had an interloper that acted like Goldilocks but was not. He nibbled on a bagel, a chocolate bar, and a pear without finishing any of them. And to add insult to injury, he pooped and peed all over our food storage.

We had a mouse.

Although we think he either left before we got back that afternoon or left as soon as the engine started because there were no more signs of him over the next few days.

Sadly, we heard from a gentleman that was camping at that same spot, that he found a dead mouse there. He said it looked like he had been killed in a trap. I never would have wished him dead for his one night of nibbling.

RIP Mr. Mouse.