I awoke in the middle of the night to silence. But not in a good way. Usually the fridge and fans are running, but they’d all stopped.

We were camping off-grid and our house battery had run flat. We’d never had this problem before but I think it was due to running the ceiling fan all day and night.

As a result I didn’t get much sleep and when my alarm went off at 5.30am I stopped it, rolled over and went back to sleep. So much for an early start.

Neither of us were in a hurry to move this morning , having had a hectic few days of driving, but when our Neighbour started his generator at 8.30 we decided it was time to leave.

We drove the road to nowhere, an unfinished road with a tunnel at the end. There was a two hour goldmine loop that we decided to do. Someone had commented on AllTrails that they saw a bear there last week, so I was a little nervous.

The smoky mountains are very touristy so we were pleasantly surprised to find we were the only ones on the trail. It wasn’t until we were halfway around that we saw one other couple walking in reverse. They hadn’t seen a bear either.

Halfway was a beautiful lake. A bunch of fish swam up waiting to be fed. We had some of our fruitcake and tossed them some crumbs and they all scrambled to eat them.

After the walk we drove up to the Clingmans dome, the highest point in North Carolina. It’s a man made structure which has 360 degree views over the Smokies. It was a windy and steep drive and Rodger got a little hot, so we had to stop at the many scenic lookouts. We stopped and had lunch at one of them, looking out over the mountains.

At the top of the mountain, we found all the people. There was a queue of cars looking for a parking spot. We lucked out, managing to grab a free spot as someone was leaving.

We joined the hoards and started the trek up the steep but paved road. We overtook quite a few people as we powered our way up, eager to see the views from the top.

About 3/4 of the way up we came to the Appalachian trail, which cuts across the path. I could just imaging walking the trail, enjoying the solitude of the mountains, to having to stop and wait for people. It would be a real WTF moment! We walked a bit of the trail, just to say we’d done it!

We continued up the paved path, dodging all the people. It was not an easy walk and a lot of people were struggling. Especially the older and overweight ones. But it would be worth it for the views.

But when we got to the top it was shrouded in mist, no view to be seen. 360 degrees of mist. We’d had better views on the drive up!

We headed back down and got out of there, leaving the hoards still struggling to get to the top!

By the time we got down from the mountain it was 4pm so we decided to camp at the Smokemont campground, which is another national park camp with no power or showers. We’ll make sure not to run our fan tonight in the hope our fridge stays running.

At least at this camp they have a section away from the generator people.

Tomorrow, we drive the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway to Virginia.