Week 17: Stone Mountain State Park

April 23, 2010


I woke this morning and headed west to Stone Mountain State Park. It was supposed to rain, so I had packed my rain gear. As I got closer to the park it started to rain. I guess it was going to be a soggy day. To my delight, it stopped raining as I started my hike on the loop trail. I was quickly shedding layers as it was turning out to be nice day. It was warm but not yet sunny. My first view as I broke through the trees was breathtaking. Ahhhhh….the Appalachians. But also a huge rock! I have never seen a whole rock (that’s 1 rock) that was an entire mountain. Fascinating!

There are stages to hiking that define the trail. Typically these are listed as easy, moderate, and strenuous. I was on a trail marked strenuous. I also think there are different degrees of strenuous; I experienced two of these today. Let me define these is my terms.

1. Strenuous = switchbacks = somewhat steep = I’m walking a lot but I don’t seem to be making much headway in terms of elevation.

2. Very Strenuous = stairs = steep = my butt is going to be hurting tomorrow.

3. Extremely Strenuous (which I did not experience today) = climbing on hands and knees or rock climbing = extremely steep = for every two steps you take you loose one by sliding backwards.

So far it was easy, but soon enough strenuous would rear its head as my trail turned into switchbacks until I reached the summit of Stone Mountain at 2,305ft. I wandered around on top for bit. The views are simply amazing up here in heaven. The clouds were still looming overhead; I was hoping the sky wouldn’t fall. The summit was another big giant rock mountain. Stone Mountain State Park is a very fitting name. In the rock was some very neat formations created by thousands of years of erosion and pooling water.

As I descended the mountain, the very strenuous appeared. Stairs. But hey I was going down so it wasn’t that bad. At the bottom was a sign (read below). Now I know that the parks put these up for legal purposes, but they always amuse me. If someone is really “smart” enough to climb over the railing and think they can walk down the big stone mountain, do you think they are “smart” enough to read the sign? I doubt it. As I neared the end of my loop I was feeling pretty energetic so I took the Wolf Rock branch. This took me back up another mountain for more gorgeous views. From this mountain, I could see the summit that I was previously at. From there I took the Cedar trail down and found the homestead of J, L, E, and J, my fellow Soapstoners. Are you guys related to John and Carrie Hutchinson?

I headed back around the loop and crossed the stream many times. It’s a good thing my boots are water proof. Now I could have used the bridges provided for me, but what fun it that? I decided to detour again because I couldn’t miss the water falls. On this trail, I had no choice but to walk across the rocks to cross the stream, as no bridges were available. The funny thing is that this water was actually more difficult to cross without getting wet. Put a bridge where it is not needed and don’t put one where you need it. Sounds logical to me, right?

By this time the sun was shining and I was getting hot. I walked down, down, down to see the lower falls. It was very neat. Back up the hill to find the branch trail for the middle falls. I saw a rock that looked like a cupcake. Yummmm! Can you tell I was hungry? The middle falls were a little tricky to get to. I had to shimmy along a ledge and then squeeze under a rock in order to get a head-on picture of the falls. After this I was wiped out and ready for The Beetle to magically appear in front of me. As I headed back out to the loop trail I came to the Stone Mountain falls. Obviously there had to be an “upper” falls if there was a middle and a lower. Now by this point, I had hiked up and down for about 8 miles. Initially I was only planning on doing 5 miles. So when I saw VERY STENUOUS conditions ahead I cringed. Stairs and lot of them. They followed the 200ft waterfall to the top. I trudged up the stairs slowly for my legs were like Jello and my belly was screaming at me for food. At the top, I found another funny sign. I was soon back at my car and headed on my merry little way.

Statistics for the day: 1 bruised knee, 1 3-inch scratch on my calf (battle scars give you character ~ at least that’s what I tell my clumsy self), 9 miles of hiking, 17.89 pictures per mile, 100% awesomeness.

Week 16: Yapa Valley with the Soapstoners

April 17, 2010

Today's adventure was a group effort and oh what an adventure it was. We hopped into two cars and headed west at 8 AM. In my car, we started out with our Bible lesson for the day. The book of Judges says "wine which cheers God and man". Wild West sent some uplifting quotes the day before we left stating "Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" ~ Benjamin Franklin. The next topic of conversation was how to go wine tasting. For this DY had found “The 5 S’s of Wine Tasting.” See, Swirl, Smell, Sip, Savore. And my favorite, even though it makes 6, SPIT!

The first stop was Raffaldini Vineyards. We were a little too rowdy for the wine server and BM and P were yelled at for talking too much. Just what were you two talking about? The wine was very good. This was agreed by most, if not all, to be the best winery of the day. It was a little early for us to be drinking wine (10:30AM) so we left feeling pretty good. Wild West had brought some espresso beans for us to munch on. I believe these were a hit. The next stop was Laurel Gray Vineyards. Somehow between winery 1 and 2 GC got glued to the seat of BM and JM’s van. No one is really quite sure what it was that GC was glued with, something black and sticky. As GC peeled stuff off of his butt, the rest of us filed up to the counter to taste more wine. At this winery, DY got out of control. Not only did Laurel Gray have wine, but more importantly they had sauces. DY was completely SAVORED with the “Crazy ‘bout Butts” BBQ sauce. The caption on the sauce said “Legs and Breasts are good too.” DY even got a t-shirt with Crazy ‘bout Butts on it. This winery also had other great sauces like chocolate and balsamic.

We stopped off at Crackle Barrel for some lunch; I ate too much. LC and I played some checkers, I lost. Although this is not surprising since 3 people were helping here. We headed onto RagApple Lassie. GC is still sticking to thing like his wife’s newspaper. They had a couple playing some oldies and singing. We listen to the oldies as we SAVORED some wine. We even got a tour of the store room since DY knew our wine pourer. CS and I talked about adventuring together. I’m always looking for a partner in crime. She has done some cool trips. The final stop of the wine trippin’ was Sanders Ridge. This place was beautiful – a mountain chateau sitting beside a pond. This was the second favorite winery. Daisy served up our tastings and flirted with Wild West. After the tasting, we sat on the deck and socialized for some time. Mysteriously someone had paid for all the tastings. THANK YOU! We learned a lot sitting on the deck at Sanders Ridge. LC and JM seem to have some mutual acquaintances. Some of my fellow Soapstoners have some interesting stories to tell.

Topics of conversation for the day:

- When Wild West wins the lottery, we are all going to go wine tasting in Italy and France and then go on lots of mission trips.

- Vanagons and VW buses (my dream house)

- Our next adventure (hang gliding and the lost city)

- Proms, wrecked cars, flowered pants

- What is stuck to GC’s pants?

- DY is lovin’ some butts…and legs and breasts (we’re talking about chicken and pigs of course)

- The final conversation of the day was….so when are we sitting on GC and LC’s porch for some wine and sauce sampling.

Week 15: Goose Creek State Park

April 10, 2010


This week I was back to hiking. My destination was Goose Creek State Park located in far eastern North Carolina. I had a book on CD to listen to for my long drive but I didn't get much listening time. Not 15 minutes after I left my house, the work phone rang. Yuck! I spent the next 3 hours on the phone with work, but I won't get into that. This is important because in all the work chaos, I somehow missed my road. I kept thinking "I should be there by now." Was I lost? Of course not! I don’t believe in get lost; I just take the scenic route. Finally, I arrived in Belhaven. I pulled out the map and realized I had missed the road probably 30 minutes ago. “Stupid work,” I thought. So I took a different route to head back southwest a bit and found the park.

As I drove in, I knew I would like this park. The road into the park went through a swamp. Cool! I’ve never seen too many swamps. I parked and started down the first path I saw. I took the Live Oaks trail. I saw many, many birds throughout the day. The first was a beautiful brilliant red cardinal. I also saw a red headed woodpecker and some other birds that shall remain nameless (mainly because I don’t know what they are). I continued on to find a cemetery. How many cemeteries have you ever seen in a State Park? Odd, but interesting. I stopped and visited the 4 dead people buried there, took their picture, and said goodbye. It wasn’t long before I came to the water. What an amazing view! You have the giant oak trees covered with the very mystical Spanish moss right beside and hanging over the Pamlico River. Along the shore there are hundreds of pieces of driftwood and just a few feet into the water are old stumps from past trees. The views are brilliant! The edge of the river is like the beach with sandy banks. I wish I had had more time to just lounge in the sand and soak up the sun. But instead I starting gathering up driftwood. I fell in love with all of the neat pieces. Yes, technically it is stealing and it is illegal to take anything from a state park, but the driftwood is just so cool. I found 2 pieces that were 12 to 16 inches long. I threw my sweatshirt over them and hurried back to the car. I made it half way and saw the park ranger at the bathroom. I couldn't just stroll past with my stolen goods. So I put them down to wait. Then some people came by and I didn’t want to look suspicious so I did a loop past my car and dropped off the driftwood I had stuck in my pack. Back to the shore for more driftwood I went. I stopped on the way back to the car for the second time and picked up the large pieces. I saw some people walking in front of me and when they got to the parking lot they lingered. So I hid the driftwood behind a tree and decided to go hiking.

I took the Goose Creek Trail. This meandered through the woods. There must have been a fire at some recent point. You could smell the burnt wood and see the singed trees and pine cones. I followed the trail for about 1 mile before coming to the swamp. The swamp was cool. It smelled nasty of course, but it is still neat. The swamp was filled will cypress trees and their knees. Knees, I learned, are sort of like a root system that stabilizes the trees in the unstable swamp bottom. These knees never sprout or grow into trees though. The water in the swamp was black and you just expect to see Swamp Thing or a giant alligator crawl out of it. A lizard scampered past my foot and down through the crack in the walkway as I almost took a heart attack. I continued through the swamp and to the end of the trail. Then I took the Flatty Creek trail to a look out – a wooden platform that overlooked the Palmico River. I lounged around here for a bit. I sat on the dock and watch as the hundress of tiny fish swimming around. I jumped as I heard a splash. I looked up and saw a big giant fish jump out of the water. It must have been 3 feet long. Ok...well...that might be a fish tale, but I'm sure it was at least 2 feet long. Haha!

None of the trails were loops, so I headed back the way I came. When I got to the end of the trails, I went back to snatch up my driftwood. It had been a several hour event but I got the driftwood into my trunk and headed for home.

I would have added more pictures, but this is what happens when you forget to put the memory card in your camera and you can only take 10 pictures. However, cell phones are handy for this until you can't figure out how to get the pictures from your account to your computer. Why do they make it so hard?

Week 14: Easter

April 2-4, 2010

For Easter I headed home to visit with the family. On the way home I saw some interesting sights: A giant apple in Winchester. This is the home of White House applesauce and the Apple Festival. A giant roller skate in Warrenton. A field full of stairs somewhere in Virginia. A bail of hay decked out like a spider. An 18-wheeler on a pole. And as I got close to home, an Amish horse and buggy.

Upon arriving home, my two nephews were quite the source of entertainment. I learned that each of them had been bitten. The 6 yr old was bitten by a troll when he fell off of the bridge. The 4 yr old was bitten by a two-headed snake. The joke of the evening was "Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9." My nephews are a riot. And my favorite comment of the weekend: "Pappy can't remember anything because of the lead in the paint." Haha! I don't know where they get this stuff.

On Saturday the boys helped me wash my car. This was entertaining. My headlights were really clean. There was a clean 6 inch band the whole way around the car just about their eye level. And the side mirrors were super clean. My nephews went home for a few hours while the Easter Bunny came to hide eggs.  When they returned the, egg hunt started. They took off running across the yard; running past many eggs in plain sight. Then they started telling each other where the eggs were instead of taking the eggs for themselves. They even tripped over the backets several times spilling eggs everywhere.

Rise and Shine! 5AM comes early and is followed by 6AM Sunrise Service and 7AM breakfast. The joy of Sunrise Service is the special music by the R Twins. I look forward to it every year. At noon I head back for home.