Payment Station
A few years ago, Leigh and I took the kids to Indian Boundary Campground down off the Cherohala Skyway to camp, kayak, hike and swim for the weekend. For those not familiar with this area of the Cherokee National Forest, it’s as beautiful as the Great Smoky Mountains, maybe a bit better-kept, and far less crowded even during holiday weekends. It’s also one of the few areas where you can throw up a tent next to a beautiful lake, tie your kayak or canoe out and take three steps from your tent to your kayak before taking a nice trip around the lake to watch the sun come up.
The Cherohala Skyway is about an hour from our home (about the same as the entrances to the Smokies). Other than the (sometimes) obnoxious motorcyclists, it’s just about the perfect place for Knoxville families to have fun in the outdoors without fighting hours of tourist traffic.
Indian Boundary Campground has a beach and swimming area near the lake where people who aren’t camping there can still come and play. While campers pay the normal camp site fees, those who just want to swim and play in the lake can pay a day rate (I think it’s $5 per car). Like many park and campgrounds, payment at Indian Boundary is on the honor system. A small pay station or “fee box” is located at the entrance with a sign telling you what the day-use fee is. No one monitors the collection box.
While walking through the parking lot, I watched as an elderly couple – probably in their 70s – fetched their towels, coolers and beach blankets from the trunk of their car. They must have been a bit hard of hearing because they were speaking VERY LOUD.
Their conversation went like this:
Elderly Woman – “Honey, you need to go and put $5 in that box over there.”
Elderly Man – “I’m not putting $5 in anything.”
Elderly Woman – “But it says we have to pay $5 to swim here.”
Elderly Man – “They like you to pay $5, but you don’t have to pay $5.”
