When I was a kid, the first day I could wear shorts as I rambled through the woods was the best first day of the year. As I eased into the hot bath that evening, the scratches would sting and I would hiss and think 'what a great day!'
Today was my best first day of this year, we went hiking at Bankhead and found the most wonderful trail that went along beside a creek for a good long ways, not just any creek, but a creek we could go tubing in! It flows right down under a bridge with easy access to get right back out at the cars, I can hardly wait to get in the water! In fact, I went wading today!
We discovered after a while that we were on the wrong side of the creek (to get the geocache), so we crossed it and proceeded to climb up the only mesa in North Alabama! As we walked over a mile around the cliff top looking for a way down and pushing through one laurel hell after another, we ended up right back where we climbed up!
By the time we got back to the lovely creek, we made a half-hearted attempt to go up a side canyon to get the cache, but opted to come back when we could wade up to it, the canyon sides were steep and we were TIRED.
Back at home, I eased into my hot bath, which was peppered with all kinds of twigs and leaf bits floating around me, my cut-up legs hit the hot water and I hissed, then smiled, ahhhh. It was a good day!
The internet is CRAP tonight, so I am not putting these in any order, so, read captions if you want to know what's what. I used the Powershot and the Rebel, so the photo quality and lighting settings go back and forth all day...
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| Matt took this one, there's my butt! |
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| My banged-up legs! |
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| My magically healed legs! WOW! |
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| The trail ahead, I loved the way it made a little tunnel |
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| Little set of falls off the main trail |
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| Rush Creek mid-crossing |
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| Skeletonized leaf |
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| Rush Creek below the trail |
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| Small falls |
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| The water was up, creeks were flowing and excess rain was trickling down anywhere there was a little gully |
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| One of a zillion little falls along the creek and feeder streams |
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| Bridge, check out all that moss! |
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| Matt crossing Rush Creek |
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| More wading and more roots! |
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| This is usually really BAD photography with the water droplets frozen, but I really liked it today for some reason. I did 2, the other one is up there^ somewhere. |
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| Rush Creek again |
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| Mossy Rock! |
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| Valley below the cliff walls |
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| Another set of roots, I was loving the green out today! |
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| Tree!! |
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| Love me some roots |
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| I forgot what this is called, I mean I know it's a boulder, but the dimples have a name... |
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| Bridge, which means the van was FINALLY somewhere around... |
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| Cedar trees along the damp valley |
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| Oh, more cliff! |
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| Yet another view of the cliff we were stuck on top of. |
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| Matt crossing creek on the way to another geocache |
