Small Comforts

Outside, the wind is whipping the rain around.  I hope it rains for hours and hours.  That's what refills the creeks so I can go backpacking next week!

Inside, I have made garlicky bread and veggie soup for lunch and have cooked cauliflower and turkey tenderloin for dinner later.  We are all full.  The house is dark, just a few lights on.  The boys are playing a game together, murmuring and laughing.  Chan is curled up chatting with friends online, enjoying a day off.  There are a couple of fans on, moving the air around.  It's a very good day. 

Earlier today, Ben went to his orchestra class and I went and walked 3 miles before the rain started.  The trail was tougher than expected and I was sweating.  I was in Chan's car because Matt has my van, with my wallet inside.  His car is at the shop for a front end noise that turned out to be rough brake pads, so not another $250 repair for the 4th month in a row! Chan had a small stack of quarters and after my walk, I drove over to a drink machine only to discover it was a Coke machine.  BUT LO AND BEHOLD there was a Diet Pepsi in the silver can option.  It took the money and dispensed an icy can with zero drama.  I may have done a dance.  Thank goodness for second-hand soda machines that the owner can stock whatever way.

I can only drink diet Pepsi because it does not have aspartame.  Aspartame makes my muscles and joints HURT, I don't know why.  Once I get moving I limber up, but the first minute or two EVERY TIME I GET UP my joints feel like they are either going to seize up or give out knees and hips being the worst.  That's zero fun in the middle of the night when all I want to do is run pee before I wake up enough to just lay there until the alarm goes off.  Instead, I hobble.  It took the better part of a year to figure it out because I had cut out all kinds of other foods first.  Mainly dairy and gluten.  That sucked, lemme tell ya.  It wasn't until after a backpacking trip that I realized I was moving just fine despite being for real sore from muscle use.  The only thing I didn't have that week was-diet soda. 

Anyway, loathe to give it up totally because-that would make sense-I simply started reading about what in diet drinks makes people have stiff joints.  And viola!  I can drink Diet Pepsi is the moral of this story.  I drink water, too.  I drink water from creeks, which is why I am liking this rain.

I have been bummed this whole month, October is our Big Trip month-for the past 10 years, we have been gone somewhere awesome this month.  DC, Blue Ridge Parkway, St. Louis, Cayman, Savannah, Florida, the OBX twice, Disney, Buffalo River...I don't have anything on the radar until nearly the end of the month and that's iffy because it involves taking Ben and his buddies off for a few days and Elan just started working.  So we aren't even sure if that's going to be a thing. I wanna go somewhere! 

In other comforts news, I have ordered yet another camping pillow to try.  I have the pack, pad, tent, and even camping hammock that I want, but that pillow...I want something HUGE like a bed pillow, but there's no backpacking pillow that big.  They are all slightly larger than a tictac container and not any softer.  The pad/pillow combo plus head results in a squirting action in which the pillow goes 'feeyuuum' and bounces off the tent wall as soon as I lay down.  I spend an hour each night locating the pillow and getting it back underneath my head.  Slightly deflated helps, but does not solve the problem.  This one has a cover. 

I did find out that I can cut down my too long pad and iron the ends closed.  So I may soon have a pad that works in the tent AND the hammock.  As soon as I get up the nerve.

Home Again

Well.  My 3 weeks on the AT turned into a soggy disaster and I bailed!

The lady who flew in from Maine to hike with us decided to go back home on day two and hitched into town and left.  It rained and rained and rained and rained.  It's still raining over there and will rain more later this week.  I am going Wednesday to pick up Melissa, who has finally had enough at 70 miles in.  I'll go back and finish that section when it's not so damn wet.  If I am going to hike it alone anyway, I'd rather be able to see more than my fogged over glasses and fogged in overlooks and muddy, slick trail.  I hate camping in the rain even with the car 20 feet away.  This was a whole new level of suck!  The first night, all my stuff was soaked because I didn't know how to set up my tent for rain.  It came with ZERO instructions.  I got smarter after the first time, but it never did stop raining for more than a few hours.  It became stressful, then wearing, then demoralizing, then enough. I don't feel even remotely bad for quitting.

I did enjoy seeing parts of the trail, seeing other people's set-ups.  The first night on Springer, a guy set up between me and the spring, and I giggled a bit about the HUGE sheet of plastic he was basically wrapping his tent with as I walked past to get water.  I will never do THAT again.  hahaha!  At the time it seemed excessive, but now...I think 50 feet of that 10 mil pool liner would be a good idea to haul around.  Or maybe just neoprene everything.

The wildflowers were amazing, trout lily not even blooming in the high areas.  Flame azalea, an Appalachian-only bloomer was starting to come out.  Violets, chickweed, iris, foam flower, oxalis, sweet shrub, dogwood, magnolia, blackberry, apple-it seems like everything was in bloom at once and when it wasn't pouring, the smell and the pollen was so strong.  Like it had to do everything in that brief window of dry.

I'm already keeping an eye on the weather to plot my return and planning hikes locally to keep my burgeoning muscles from lapsing back into Little Debbie snack cake shape.

The one dry afternoon.

My tent off in the distance.
I was going to hammock camp but I have never hammocked in blowing rain and I was a little worried about staying warm enough at night with the air moving under the hammock.  Tents are about 10 degrees warmer just through blocking the air.  I sleep cold, so-tent.

It rained.  I have a few foggy overlooks and some slightly blurred flowers.

The next weekend, Matt and I walked to Helton Creek Falls:

On the way to our AirBnB we went past this old courthouse:

He was going to drop me back off at the trail Sunday, but it started raining again and I was done.  I asked him to just take me home, so he did.

Been trying to eat here for about 7 years now.
It was closed for remodeling.  hahaha
The drive thru was open, but I wanted to sit still and dry and eat.
We went to Creekside Deli and it was wonderful.  I had a double grilled cheese, perfection.

Matt did not believe me-that the local 'hospital' was for Cabbage Patch Kids.
They had these huge white cabbages out front with baby heads inside.  We both thought the other had gotten a pic of them!

On the way home, we routed through Atlanta and walked the Dolls Head Trail.
Then, we got home around dark and that was that.  Not a super exciting start to the backpacking adventures, but I'm okay with that.  I'm not hurt, my gear is undamaged, as soon as my shoes dry out I think they have a few more miles in them.  I admire people who can push through day after day of that kind of weather, but I know myself well enough to realize I am not made of the same stuff, and that's okay.

Backpacking Lite in MS

We planned a 2 night trip to Sipsey, but (tornadic) storms Wednesday cut right through that idea.
So, we went west of the weather to Tombigbee National Forest for a shakedown trip

This kid,  Born backpacker, I can't wait until she's old enough to take a serious distance.

We talked to a ranger, who had apparently never been down more than one trail in the whole system and that one was 'flat'.  So, armed with a map and his suggestions, we parked and headed down a closed road to a creek crossing.
Then after looking around for a decent spot to camp that was not boggy or covered in poison oak, we hiked back out to the cars.

Then we checked out several 'hunting' camps before ending up at the trailhead campsite on Sheep Ranch Road.  It was just a few feet from the cars, but we still got to try out all the gear, recipes and there was plenty of hiking right from the site.

D got a fire going with a knife and magnesium!

Sammy played for us a while.

I tented with Ben the first night, he bailed for the van the second night (really strong winds and low temps) so I had to make do with my hammock chair for lounging instead of the full hammock!

Picnic tables make everything SO much easier.

We were camped right next to a cemetery, on the way to check it out we saw a snake!

Leap year baby!

We walked about 10 miles the whole trip, it was very laid back.  We mostly hung out at camp.

Thursday was SO windy and chilly!  We did not want to go straight home, so we veered over to the Natchez Trace and drove on that for about an hour, until we hit Tupelo.  Then we took 78 back across to Alabama.

hop clover

daisy fleabane

sorrel

buckeye

road trip weather!

Back home, Nia had nearly died of neglect

And after a long search for Batman, I found him.  Face down in the gravel after falling out of my window!  I was horrified!  He has a scuff now.  His besties, purple Catwoman and Peter Parker have tried to cheer him up, but it was a bad fall. 

VA Trip Pt 2: The Channels

Park's map

The trail climbs 1200 feet in 3.5 miles.  It's mostly steady but there are some steep sections for sure.

There was only a 20% chance of rain when I was packing and that was just for an hour or so. So I didn't bring rain gear.  Park gave the kids a couple ponchos and I used my jacket that isn't really waterproof.  It wasn't bad under the trees, the rain came and went while we climbed.

Figured out how it can be a supergreen chocolate pro bar.
They just put the greens right in there.  It was better than the cookies and cream bar, we all decided.

My plans on this day involved turning this shack into a pizza place.

Following the trail under the fire tower, it heads right down into the tunnels.

It started to rain again.  Then to hail!

Then it cleared right off so we explored a little longer

Up at the top again, the clouds were back and another round of rain was threatening, so we headed down sooner than I would have liked.  This is definitely on the list to come back again!

Park and Katie headed down, the kids and I hung around at the top a bit longer and were rewarded with a final glimpse off into the valley.

Katie left us a note!