Fall Creek Falls - Day Three

Thursday, October 18, 2012 - Sparta

It was wet outside this morning.  Last night's rain soaked everything - picnic table, folding chairs, our firewood, everything.  Water dripped from the leaves overhead.  Instead of cooking outside on the stove, we fired up the stove inside the camper and scrambled some eggs to go with the sausage left over from yesterday. 

Today was road trip day.  There isn’t much to see in the immediate neighborhood outside the park, so we looked up some surrounding towns on a map and decided to go to Sparta.  We’d been told there was a Walmart in Sparta, and we needed to go there for some toilet dope and a few other supplies. 

On the drive up to Sparta, we oooh’d and aaaaah’d over the beautiful scenery. 

The hills were riots of color.  I said to Joel, “I’m going to make us a Fall Creek Falls quilt when we get home – yellows, oranges, browns, greens…I can see it in my head.”  He nodded, just to make me think he was listening.

In Sparta, we found a parking spot on the court square.  As luck would have it, our front windshield was aimed directly at a quilt shop!  Joel kind of groaned when he heard my swift intake of breath and followed my gaze.  “It’s fate!” I said as I bailed out of the truck.

It was a really nice little shop, with a really nice little lady running it and nice little ladies shopping in it.  One of the ladies struck up a conversation with us.  It turned out that she and her husband were also camping at Fall Creek Falls; he’d dropped her off and gone to Walmart.  I told Joel that he could go run some errands while I shopped, but he stayed close by.  I’m thinking he was scared to leave me alone with the credit card in a quilt shop. 

After we left the quilt shop, we walked a few blocks down the street to the county museum.  Lester Flatt lived in (or near) Sparta, as did Benny Martin, and one nook in the museum was dedicated to them and their music.  We have never had such personal service at any museum.  One of the attendants stayed at our side, telling us about each display.  It was great.  When we left, she armed us with a flyer or two, and even gave us a 2006 calendar (“It’s out of date, but it’s got pretty pictures of White County in it.”)

By that time, we were hungry.  I was thinking about salsa, chips, and a margarita, and as we drove around, surveying our culinary options, I kept an eye out for a Mexican restaurant.  As we drove, I glimpsed a red, green, and white sign down a side street that said “Casa [Something].”  "I see a Mexican place!" I shouted.  Joel turned the truck around, and we went in.  My first hint that I’d misunderstood the sign happened when we walked in and saw a dessert case that contained cannoli.  Cannoli in a Mexican restaurant?  Sure enough, it was an Italian restaurant.  We ate there anyway.  It was delicious, but the lunch special – two calzone and one personal-sized pan pizza – was way more food than two people ought to eat.  Guess what we’ll be having for dinner tonight?

Back at the camp site, we saw that our next door neighbors had brought a cat with them.  The wife was walking the cat on a leash.  Have you ever seen a cat on a leash?  I hadn’t, but this cat was acting exactly like I would have imagined a cat on a leash would act.  It hunkered, and darted, and fought the leash, and looked utterly pissed and embarrassed to have found itself in this situation.  I wondered if the lady was walking the cat for exercise or if she was taking it out to potty, and as she neared our campsite, I worked up the nerve to just ask her, “Does that cat go potty on the leash?”  You know how funny cats are about their “business.”  They like to sniff, and dig, and squat, and cover it up, and they like some privacy while they’re doing it.  The lady said he “sometimes does,” but they carry a litter box with them anyway.   

Take this to the bank:  you will never, ever catch me taking a cat and a litter box on a camping trip.