Hiking The Cumberland Trail (again)

Sabbath Afternoon the weather was absolutely beautiful, so we decided to go hiking along the southernmost section of the Cumberland Trail (CT), atop Signal Mountain with Todd, Jen & Gil. We all hiked down to the "Indian Rockhouse", a rock formation which creates a nice natural shelter. We then continued along the edge of Signal Mountain, overlooking the Tennessee River to our turn-around spot, "Lusk Point Overlook". We climbed down to some rock cliffs where we had an awesome view of the river and the city of Chattanooga in the distance. (map of hike)

Here are some of our previous hikes along the CT.

• Todd's Birthday at Rock Creek
• More hiking at Rock Creek

Photo Caption Contest:

I saw this on the interstate yesterday and just happened to have my camera with me... :)

Please submit your photo captions in the "comments" section below.

Hiking The Pinhoti Trail

This past weekend we drove down to Alabama accompanied by Todd to hike the Pinhoti Trail with Mark and Kristin along with their friends Wilf, Jane11e, and Maria. The Pinhoti trail extends 115 miles through Georgia and Alabama -- however, we only hiked about a 3-4 mile section of it (6-8 miles total).
Here's a map of our hike

Friday evening we all met at the Pine Glen campground and set up our tents for the night. That night the temperature dipped down to 39 degrees F. Thank goodness for fleece & warm sleeping bags!

The next morning we ate breakfast, packed up camp and set off towards our goal -- a camping shelter about 5.8 miles away (our original plan was to hike a 13 mile segment of the trail, one direction). After hiking between 3 or 4 miles we decided that we were ready to stop for the night, and found a nice quiet spot in the woods, off the trail and by a peaceful creek.

That evening after setting up our tents among the trees we built a nice fire, ate supper and then played games, told stories and solved riddles around the campfire before finally heading to bed. There's nothing like climbing into a soft sleeping bag the second night of a camping trip after the exhaustion has settled in... :) Zzzzzzzzzz.... .

Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast around the campfire, and then packed up our stuff once again for the hike back to our cars back at the first campsite (4 miles back). The hike back didn't seem nearly as long, although the backpacks still felt pretty heavy.

Aside from our new aches & pains we can easily say that we had a great time hiking the Pinhoti Trail!

Todd's Photos & Mark & Kristin's Photos

Other interesting bits of info:

• We saw a little snake on the trail
• We didn't see any bears, raccoons or skunks
  
• Er!c got stung by a yellow jacket on his wrist
• We found a skeleton in the woods -- it may have been a deer
  
• Our packs were 30+ lbs each
• We helped some campers break into their own car
  
• It was bow hunting season -- we didn't get shot

TV Time!

Tofu & Arthur watching TV

Weekend Activities

On Sabbath we went hiking with Gil & Jen & Todd at the Rock Creek section of the Cumberland Trail. Along the way we found this nice spider web, back-lit by the afternoon sun.

It looks like Fall is finally here. This maple tree in our back yard has a beautiful combination of red, orange, yellow and green leaves.

Arthur and Tofu enjoy the Fall weather while sitting in front of the screen door in the sun room. I happened to get them to both look up at the same time for this photo. . :)

This week we planted 3 new trees in our yard. We planted an apple tree and a pear tree in the back yard along the property line with our next-door neighbors. We also planted a second plum tree in the front yard in line with the driveway. Once these plum trees fill out nicely it will provide some nice privacy for our front yard.

Who Needs Trees Anyway?

Monday morning our next-door neighbor (who cut down all his big trees) finished things off by cutting down the remaining smaller trees in his front yard... so now the only thing standing upright in his front yard is the plane Jane 20 ft tall flag pole which stands out even more now. Their yard now looks uglier than I ever thought it could. It is slowly becoming more and more "rednecky".

So this evening we swung by Lowes and came home with 3 fruit trees (Apple, Pear, & Plum) to plant along the property line in the lower yard -- mainly to make a point about planting trees, and to help establish our property boundaries, and to provide some sort of visual barrier between us and them.
...And also because trees are good for the environment!
[The Top 35 Eco Blogs]

We are also going to plant a line of thicker barrier trees (possibly Leeland Cypress) along the property line between our two houses (in the upper yard) so we won't have to look into their cluttered carport and see their ugly yard & house whenever we're on the back deck or in the backyard. We'll try to get that all done sometime this week (or next).

Here's a cute cartoon about global warming.

Happy Weekend!

I hope you're having an Arthur kind of weekend! . :)

Fun With Arthur

Here's a little something fun I did in Flash
with a couple photos of Arthur. Enjoy!