A Lodge Called Folkestone
The Dream, The Challenge, The People
by Bob Kranich(Excerpt 17)
“The Lodge Called Folkestone”. You may wonder why the first half of the book is about my many adventures throughout the USA. Well, this first part explains just why my interests changed from hot rodding cars to backpacking. How the idea of a lodge came about, and just how the lodge came to be in North Carolina and next to the Smoky Mountain National Park, Deep Campground to be exact.
Orlando, Houston, and Out West
I caught the bus out of Key West. It was goodbyes to my Uncle Norman, Aunt Dolores, and the two girls they were raising, Robin and Sandy. They had graciously let me stay in their travel trailer, which was just like the one at my parent’s house, and fed me for a month. They were a wonderful family. When I arrived in Tampa, both my mom and dad were at the bus station to pick me up. They had a lot of questions, and I had a lot to tell.
I decided that I had better get with it and get a job. I sent out resumes and got an offer in Orlando from Wilbur Smith and Associates, a traffic planning consultant. My experience with the City of Tampa Traffic Planning had landed me this job. I needed a place to live there, and as the Good Lord was watching over me, my supervisor, Gary Lester, told me that his mom had a room she was wanting to rent out. This included board, and she was a great Italian cook! I felt blessed.
I started out on the drafting board with Wilbur Smith and Associates. We would do the design and presentation reports from the studies. This was their product to their customers which were usually municipalities. I worked on the drafting board there for a year and one half. There are two quotes I learned, and need to repeat.
The first one came from one of the traffic engineers, “We can never get ahead of the problem. We do the study, make the report, and the municipality raises the money. We then do the construction. But by that time, the traffic has increased so much that we have not solved anything!”
The second came from my drafting boss, Al. I asked him to check some ink work I had done on a drawing. “What do you think about this, Al?” He looked at my work carefully, and then replied, “Every man has to draw his own line” (meaning we all have to set our level of quality). I never forgot either one of these.
One day, some upper level supervisors came to me and said that they were flying me out to Houston, Texas. I would be leading up a drafting team for a presentation they were doing at that office for a Houston customer. It was out there, after work, that I met my former wife, Irene, at a dance club next to the Houston Astrodome. After my job in Houston was completed, I returned and gave Wilbur Smith and Associates a two week notice. I then took my trusty Ranchero, and returned to Houston. I’m sure that the girl had something to do with my move!
Upon returning to Houston, I got a great job, drafting at Rice University Space Science department. The reason it was so great is that when I got this crazy idea to go out west for three months hiking, the supervisor, Al, said, “That’s really fine Bob when you get back, we will rehire you, and you can tell us about your adventures!”
The first thing I did, as I was working and saving up, was to build a nice wood camper on my Ranchero. While I was working, I told the five guys in the drafting room that I was working on a grubstake, and then they started calling me, “Grubstake Bob.” Next, I bought all of the nonperishable food I would need, such as canned goods, and stowed them in the false floor that my Ranchero had in the back.
One other thing that I did was to invest in a start-up business of a fellow that I had met who was working in a backpacking equipment store. He was going to start his own backpack store in Houston called “Outdoor Equipment, Inc.” My investing in this business gave me access to purchasing discounted, new hiking equipment. I would use this later for my guide service at Folkestone Lodge.
It was a great day in May of 1972 when I headed towards Colorado for my first big hike. In the following pages, I will give a short overview of my major hikes that I took in those three months.
Durango, Colorado: I bought my ticket, and with my backpack filled for a five-day hike, I took the Durango to Silverton tourist train. This railroad is a three-foot narrow gauge, and is very historic. It has been running continuously with steam locomotives since 1881! This train trip is fantastically scenic, for it runs along the Animas River, sometimes hanging precariously on the edge of cliffs. I had them let me off along the way, at the trailhead for the Chicago Basin, which is in the San Juan Mountains. This area is rugged, high mountain country.
I hiked back into the basin, which is an old time, famous gold mining area, surrounded by high peaks, some reaching 14,000 feet. Looking around, I could see old mine openings, and a few old shacks. The next morning, I hiked up and over the McCauley Peak through the Columbine Pass. Then down to Valencia Creek where I camped. That evening it started to rain. The next morning I continued my hike, following the creek towards another high mountain pass.
Late morning, as I was hiking in the rain, I was caught up to by a party of five local hikers, two girls and three boys. The girls were carrying packs just like the guys. I was impressed. They said that they had realized that they had been following a single hiker by my footprints. They were going the same way, so I joined up with them. I was to find out later that the Good Lord had sent them my way. For what was to follow, I would need them.
From the Author:
This is a new book. It is about the Lodge I built in the Smoky Mountains, near Bryson City, and Deep Creek campground, North Carolina. Having been from Florida, I know that a lot of Floridians love to visit the Smoky Mountains National Park. Therefore hopefully you will enjoy my story of the building of “A Lodge Called Folkestone”.
