Fall Creek Falls State Park

After a jam packed week at the Blue Ridge Rally, Grace and I headed to another Tennessee state park for some hiking and downtime -- accompanied by a friend, Judy, and her two border collies.

From the website:  "Fall Creek Falls State Park is Tennessee’s largest and most visited state park. The park encompasses more than 26,000 acres sprawled across the eastern top of the rugged Cumberland Plateau. Laced with cascades, gorges, waterfalls, streams and lush stands of virgin hardwood timber, the park beckons those who enjoy nature at her finest. Fall Creek Falls, at 256 feet, is one of the highest waterfalls in the eastern United States. Other waterfalls within the park include Piney Falls, Cane Creek Falls and Cane Creek Cascades."

The sites were large, with some privacy between them, shady, and I had 3 bars of LTE for work.  We did a bit of hiking, a few scenic drives, some cooking and visiting and lots of relaxing!

Some of the scenery...

Around camp...

Living riveted!

Hey -someone's gotta do it!

Grace - post hike

Hello Spring!

Happy New Year - Setting the Tone

Welcome to 2015

Since I've decided to really try to blog more this year, I thought I'd start by wishing you Happy New Year... even though I just told you about Christmas yesterday :-)  Thank you for following along, I really appreciate you taking the time to read this!  If you are so inclined, leave me a comment sometime.  I'm like a kid at Christmas when I get one (or Sally Fields at the oscars if you remember that one).

Back in a previous life, my friends and I would always ride on New Year's day.  Believing that our activity on New Year's day would set the tone for what we would do the rest of the year, we would saddle up and ride.  Sun or rain or sleet or one time even snow, we would ride.  Sometimes it would just be a quick jog on the trails across the street from the farm and sometimes it would be a planned week long camping trip.  But however it manifested itself that particular year, New Year's day always included a trail ride.  I don't know if it 'set the tone' for the rest of the year but it was the very best way to start the year with good friends.  I have some wonderful memories of those rides, even the short ones.

Keeping with that tradition, I spent the morning hanging out with Breezin' and getting some organizing done before our trip next week.  I really hope that 2015 contains lots of time traveling and camping!  We received (or gifted ourselves) a plethora of "red" for Christmas.

A new Keurig mini - no more waiting for the percolator when we have electric!
Thank you family

New skillet - I'm good with the love & peace, not
so sure about the taco grease though

My favorite - these are magnetic on the top and stick together - take almost no room
includes spatula, spoon, pasta server, slotted spoon and they sit in the ladle.

New knives - red polka dots!  And they even work well :-)

Walkie-talkies for the next caravan so Sue doesn't have to call me on the cell phone to tell me to pass the dang car in front of me and catch up!

For the rest of the day, I hope to take in a movie and maybe settle in with a book and a glass of wine. If that sets the tone for the rest of the year, I couldn't be happier!

Hope your start to 2015 is exactly what you wish for!

Happy Birthday Breezin'!

Earlier this week, I took a trip to JD Sanders RV in Gainesville

to have annual service done on Breezin'.  It's hard to believe that I've owned her for a year already.

Though we got off to a slow start, we traveled  48 nights and 4,200 miles during the past twelve months.  We visited a couple of local campgrounds (Silver River and Gold Head Branch in FL); Visited Cumberland Island National Seashore and had Thanksgiving in Savannah; Took a trip to visit friends and family near Nashville, Hit the Blue Ridge Rally with T@B friends in Jefferson, NC; watched the fireflies at Elkmont Campground in the Smokey Mountains; Spent a few nights in Kinard, SC working when project deadlines loomed on the way home; and rounded out the year back in SC with a visit to Hunting Island, and a few days on Jekyll Island.

It was a great year - and hopefully a small sampling of the next twelve months!

A blustery day headed to Cumberland Island

Sunrise at the KOA near Nashville

Gold Head Branch (FL) our first outing

Crooked River State Park

Skidaway Island

Hunting Island SC

Elkmont, GSMNP, Tennessee

Raccoon Holler, NC

STILL KICKIN'

Wow, hard to believe the whole summer has flown by and we are mid-way through the fall season already.

It's been a long while since I've posted anything here, but I really didn't have a lot of blog worthy adventures this summer.

I did get to catch the last half of the T@B Coastal Caravan the last week of October.  Four days at Hunting Island with a beachfront campsite and then three days at Jekyll Island with a wonderful group of folks was good medicine for the soul.  The weather was picture perfect all but the very last day.  Good food, good company with lots of campfire chat, bike riding and beach sitting.  Ahhh...

 Home again and ready for the next adventure!

Synchronizing in the Smokies

After a quick stop in Elko, GA for an overnight--

Does anyone know what these are?  We passed about 10 of them in a row...some type of converted school bus

A quick overnight in Elko - Twin Oaks is a small well-maintained campground we stop at on the way to Nashville.  At $19 (Passport America) it's a great quick stop right off I-75

we were on our way to the GSM National Park to see a phenomenon that occurs only there... the synchronization of thousands of fireflies.    We stayed at Elkmont Campground, in a site with a view that more than made up for having no services.

Our campsite at Elkmont

Room with a view - out the back window of Breezin'

My morning coffee spot!

 I added a second battery to Breezin' before we left and I was pleased that we made it 4 nights and still had most of our battery power left.  We were pretty conservative, using lanterns at night and it was cool enough we didn't need the overhead fan.

Thursday I took Grace and Dillon to a local boarding facility that had a fenced acre to run on, while a friend and I took an impromptu hike to Laurel Falls.  I would show you all the beautiful pictures we took at the falls but we didn't make it all the way there!  About a mile in (and the trail is only 1.3 miles long) the skies turned black and the thunder started to rumble and the lightening started.  Since we were hiking in shorts with no jackets or supplies at all (we hadn't planned on hiking) and I had my camera without a case of any kind, we turned around and headed back down to the car.  Can't believe I just admitted that :-)

Wildflowers along the trail

Early morning in the Smokies

Backpacking bear at NOC

Later in the day we took a quick trip into Gatlinburg, tourist mecca of the Smokies.  Not my kind of place, but we had a great burger and beer and there is a NOC Outdoor Store of Appalachian Trail fame,   which I had to visit (and spend a little money).

 Later that night, we walked to see the fireflies.  I wish I had the photographic skills to show them to you (I don't).  Instead I'll leave you with this link that tells more about it:  Synchronized Fireflies

I went with the idea that this would be nice to see, cute maybe.  I was wrong.  It was completely magical and something you should take the opportunity to see if you get the chance.  It only happens at the Elkmont area of the Smokies and only two weeks a year.  It was incredible!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.  I had a book going to press (no, I'm not the author, just work for the publisher) so I spent a couple of days in Kinards, SC at a campground with 4 bars of 4G Verizon to get the final work on it done and then a night at the KOA just south of Savannah.  Would have loved to stay at Skidaway Island state park again but needed the stronger signal to finish up.

Back home in Florida....   ready to go again!

Goodbye Friend... Ruby has a new home

I know it's silly to be sad over an inanimate object, even one as cool as Ruby.  But it was bittersweet when she pulled out of the storage facility on the way to her new home this week.

Ruby the T@B parked at her new home!

When I moved to Florida, I thought I was done with camping...  I had just sold the farm and the horses; and the dually and horse trailer.

Big Bubba the truck and horse trailer

the barn

The farm house

 While I adjusted okay to not riding (I will always miss it), I had to have a way to get back outside. Enter the T@B trailer.  If I couldn't ride and camp, I could at least still camp!

We explored the Florida state parks, took in a rally, went back to Tennessee to visit family and even made our way to a couple of national parks.  I had a blast, I was back outside, I was hiking and camping and it made the move easier.

I loved the T@B, but with two big dogs I just needed a little bit more floor space.   So last fall I moved to the Airstream Sport.  Not much bigger, but just enough that I don't trip over the dogs trying to get to the door.  I love the airstream and I'm happy I made the switch, although I miss how easy the T@B was to manuever.  I've had to get better at lining up the hitch and I can't swing the 'stream around to capture the best view from the front door!  

Ruby has gone to a good home and it was time for someone else to enjoy her as much as I did.

Now, time to pack up Breezin' and get back on the road! 

Storage Solution - a little bling for Breezin'

One of the biggest storage issues I've had with the airstream is where to put my clothes for longer trips.  Because of the curved walls, the overhead storage in the Sport model is very limited... even rolled I can't seem to make things stay on the shelves!

On the last trip, I used packing cubes that I had left over from my corporate days of travel. These worked well to hold my clothes but by the end of the week ended up spread out all over the bed and stuffed in the corners.

The closet is very deep, but narrow and really needs some shelves to make it usable.  And I'd rather have that as kitchen and pantry storage once I do get shelves put in.

On a trip to IKEA last week, I stopped at the Container Store on the way home and found these great totes for storage.

These are coated fabric over a metal frame that folds flat when not in use; with a handle on each side and even an area for labeling if you are so inclined.  This is the medium size.  I choose the red to match, but they also come in a brown paisley or in plain beige canvas that would be fun to decorate yourself.

Hopefully this will keep me a little more organized on the next trip.

They zip closed and also velcro to keep the contents clean and secured

This has 8 t-shirts, 2 pj's and all my socks and undies for a week and still has room to add more

Best of all, they fit perfect under the bed... I even had room for a basket for shoes stored on top.  I can turn them the other way if I need to clear room in front of the furnace.