Holding on for Dear Life

This was taken in Daniel Boone National Forest near Lexington, Kentucky. I love the way trees can seemingly grow right out of rock.

Blue Bird at Milliken

This was taken last year in November. I was surprised to see a good many Blue Birds thinking all would have migrated by this time.

Rails to Trails & Palmetto Trails

This a picture of the Broad River and Hamilton Island from the trestle described below. Looking skyward while we rested.

A great addition to the Palmetto Trail to be opened soon. We were told there are bald eagles in the area but we were not lucky enough to spot one today.

This weekend, being the warmest so far this year, beckoned us to the great outdoors. We set off with kayaks, hiking sticks, GPS, coordinates and other essentials to make the most of it. First stop was Lake Monticello where we paddled to two caches and hiked to several more. This was my first visit to the lake and it is much larger than I anticipated. I really like that one section is restricted to electric motors as it makes kayaking very pleasant.

In the afternoon we met up with daughter and son-in-law to cache on the Peak to Prosperity Section of the Palmetto Trail. This is a beautiful trail built on an abandoned section of railway and a lot of work is being done to open more miles and maintain what is already open. We ran into a couple of the volunteers and they shared some great stories about the trail and local history. I think they said there is a total of 13 trestles along the 11 miles of rail bed. They have rebuilt several and made them safe for walking.

There is one trestle that crosses the Broad River and we were treated to an opportunity to walk across on the newly finished boardwalk. It is not officially opened yet and there is some discord in the local community but I am sure the Palmetto Conseravation folks will prevail. You can read more on this trail by googling the name, Peak to Prosperity Section of the Palmetto Trail. There are pictures and news articles with lots of details about the history of the rail line and the building of the trail. I encourage all who live in South Carolina to visit the Trail and we should all celebrate its completion, from the mountains to the sea, in the near future.

Seasons

We took off camping this past weekend, knowing it was going to rain but still believing we could get in some hiking and geocaching between the storms. Thursday evening and Friday morning were good but by Friday afternoon the rain had started and showed no signs of letting up. We managed to get a paddling cache on an island in Lake Wylie where we were treated to the sight of nesting Great Blue Herons in several nests at the tops of the pine trees. We also got a history lesson and 5 more caches on Nanny Mountain, sight of iron mining before and during the American Revolution.

After it started raining, we played Bananagrams, which is now my favorite game thanks to the Christmas gift from my son. We visited the York County Museum where we were treated to Africa Alive, a great annual display of African American history, music, dance and crafts.

Hooking up in the rain was no fun and knowing we were headed home to promises from the weather folks of a major winter snow storm, made us want to run in the other direction but it would have been a long journey to escape this storm which covered the entire eastern seaboard from Alabama to Maine.

To get back to the title of this post, I am adding pictures of a river birch in the front yard during a summer storm last year and the snow storm of ysterday. Then there's the garden from last week when I turned the soil and planted peas and potatoes to the blanket of snow today.

Another Find Day of Caching

Today Sandy and I headed off to do some hiking and caching. It was one of those glorious days where you wish the weather could be the same every day. Our geocache involved going into a small cave and it was the first time I have ever been into something other than the tourist attraction caverns. After the initial crawl through the opening, we could stand up in the small room. Lots of swarming insects and spiders and what looked like a bat hanging from the ceiling kept us company while we explored. It was a great adventure and hike.

The first picture above shows the bat. We were just curious why it was the only one and if it was really real. It did seem to move when we got real close to examine.

The second picture is from the back of the cave looking toward the opening.

Caching on the Tracks

This weekend Sandy and I went after a geocache called Slaughterhouse Curve. It is on the abandoned train tracks that first connected Asheville, NC and Spartanburg, SC. Climbing the Saluda Grade at a 5% incline made it the steepest section of track in the Eastern US. The history is fascinating and the scenery in the area is magnificent if you like rugged and mountainous. Finding areas like this and seeing the beauty of nature are the biggest reason I geocache but sometimes things just go awry.

Right off the bat, I lost my cell phone but didn't realize it until the next morning. This is the second time this has happened while caching and the reason I now have insurance on my phone. Searching for it seemed futile since the ringer was off and we had covered way too much territory to retrace it all.

This morning we went back to find the last clue which involved a trestle. When I found what I needed and tried to get my glasses and pen from my pocket, yep----I dropped them and my flashlight to the rocks about 50 feet below. Seems nothing was going right for me on this adventure. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve my glasses intact. The case flew open on impact and is dinged pretty badly but the glasses are OK and I stand ready to do a commercial for Mini Maglites. It's dented around the lens but still works like a champ.

Did I mention the area is very picturesque? There won't be any pictures attached to this posting though because the battery died on the very first one I tried to take.

We did sign the little piece of paper in the ammo can in the woods so all is not lost!

Run, run, run away.....

Run to the sun.
Come out and play.

It would seem that I have been playing way too much and running away from my blog. I was shocked to see that I had not posted anything since September, but the real runaway was last weekend when we decided that night time temps of 6ºF could not be tolerated. We packed a bag and headed south, ending up in Orlando where the temps were near 70ºF and the sun was shining. I made my first visit to Disney and truly enjoyed Epcot and the Animal Kingdom.
We stopped overnight in St. Augustine on the way back and found a city definitely worth a return trip. It was a very nice get away but as Murphy's Law would have it, we came back to snow, albeit a very brief dusting.