Article 3 - "SIFTING THROUGH GATLINBURG" May 2007 edition of First Church of The Streets

    The dawn rose in Tennessee in the interstate rest stop where the three of us spent the night. We'd driven the entire evening to arrive here, just miles away from the exit on I-40 that would take us south to the Great Smoky National Park. Only a couple of hours separated us from here to the park, the most visited park in the National Park System. Only a couple of hours of driving, and also another surprise obstacle: the maze of Gatlinburg.

    It would make sense that every park would have some kind of main business center outside of it. After all, all those tourists have to eat somewhere. The park rangers most likely didn't live at visitors' centers. And in the United States, where everything has been pretty much claimed as some kind of settled territory, particularly in the East where the white man had to civilize those Indians who didn't know how to harvest all those pesky trees that got in the way of a good tobacco plantation, there were towns just about everywhere, even in the so-called remote areas. So no, the fact that Gatlinburg existed didn't really surprise me. No, what jarred me out of the meditative state that I created for myself as I prepared to enter nature was driving straight into a carnival. Literally.

    Unidentifiable amusement rides, hives of strange tourist hubs, and other carnival paraphernalia swarmed around in a buzz. ready to consume me. Things were flying in the air, and I couldn't tell you if it was someone's lunch from a ride, a dog, someone's ex-wife from a shooting range, or what. Large signs with gimmicks came up with creative ways to scream at me, "CONTRIBUTE TO CHARITY: SPEND ALL OF YOUR MONEY HERE AND GO IN DEBT TO HELP YOUR COUNTY'S ECONOMY. UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU. WELL, NOT YOU PERSONALLY, BUT HE LIKES WHAT YOUR MONEY DOES FOR THE NUMBERS". Except it wasn't so creative, because there was so much goofy competition it was hard to tell the difference between anything. It was like a giant puppy store where every canine barked in a cacophony, "CHOOSE ME!" to the point where you wound up choosing none of them just to get away from the noise. As it was for me when I entered this melee and mayhem that posed as a quintessential American town with a scheme up its sleeve.

    I don't know why I was surprised when we came upon the giant tourist trap. After all, this was part of the American heritage as much as the natural beauty of the national park. Capitalism was the real reason why this country spread; after all, all the great natural bounty of these United States was considered great for two things: tobacco and timber. All the trees around here were nothing more than a nuisance until our federal goverment decided that maybe protecting nature for posterity's sake was a good idea, and national heritage went further than a business plan. No, even though the idea of a forest seemed primeval and something that went beyond the ages of a nation as young as this one, the commercial spectacle that we were driving by was something graced with a complex imbued with a mentality that existed from the birth of the country. It was American as the national park that I was going to see once I got past all the insanity here. And maybe after the visit, I could get some dinner.

    At some point, the tourist traps cleared out, disappearing in a swirl of activity like it was flushed away into oblivion. I exhaled, letting the goofy circus breathe into the air and fly away with the wind, and inhaled the greenery that started to envelop my environs, seeping into my senses. Greenery, peacefulness, and silence would soon be mine. Well, I'd have to share it with a whole bunch of other people looking for a camping experience in the great outdoors. But it would be quiet compared to the carnival we'd just ventured through.

    At last, the signs telling us where to go to the national park let to the sign that we had arrived: the Great Smoky National Park, an oasis in a nightmare. Cars drove back and forth, a thoroughfare of a day in the park, whether it was in the merry-go-round or a day in protected land. Somewhere along the line, this patch of land had been set aside to be enjoyed in a relatively undeveloped state. Gatlinburg existed as a town that knew that this was here, and in the back of your mind as you explored the wild, instead of thinking you were miles from nowhere, you knew you could turn around and get yourself a hamburger and forget that nature even existed.