Autumn backpack on the Appalachian Trail

This past weekend Mat, Maddy and I were dropped off at Sam's Gap right off of an interstate. We threw on our backpacks, climbed through a gate and down to another highway, walked along the highway for a minute and then we hit our trail. It was an awesome time of year with the leaves changing.

Here is our trail dog...

 

Maddy finally taking a break...

 

After hiking for some hours, we arrived at the top of Big Bald Mountain, which had a great 360 degree view of all the mountains. We were hanging out enjoying the view, when a family with little kids came hiking up the trail to enjoy the view. I was thinking hey, that's cool, they are out for a pretty good walk. Then Mat pointed out that they parked right down below. Maddy and I are on top of Big Bald.

After being on top of Big Bald we hiked up the next hill and we noticed a bunch of nets were set up for catching birds. A few feet more down the trail we ran into one of the volunteers catching the birds and he told us what they were doing. AND that they had caught a sharp shinned hawk (a smaller forest raptor) which they were going to put a band on and take some measurements shortly. Were we interested in watching? Mat and I were like, uh, of course. Turns out that Maddy and I got to walk up and down along the trail while Mat watched them take the measurements and put the band on. They came back out from their research spot behind a rock with the hawk and let Mat release it. I got to see it it up close. It was pretty cool.

Then we continued hiking for another hour or so, set up camp and then the next day we hiked most of the rest of the way, so that we only had a few miles to bust out in the morning to meet Sara by 10 a.m.. It all worked out perfectly. We woke up and hiked for about 15 minutes or so in the dark and then it was a beautiful sunrise to watch while walking out. We ended up arriving at the Nolichucky River trailhead about 1.5 hours early! But it was fine, we hung out at the hostel right near the trailhead and checked out the Nolichucky River.

Independent Thoughts

Food dehydrator

This morning we woke up to the gentle sound of rain falling on our roof. Can you see the rain hitting the road? At this point it is at the peak of the rain storm.

We also awoke to the smell of pineapple. Yesterday at Goodwill, we made an impulse purchase and bought a $12 food dehydrator (as seen on TV). Our only hope was to get home and actually have it turn on. Which it did. So we cut up some kiwi, pineapple and bananas to try out this new toy. By mid-day today they were at a nice chewy texture, so we took them off and we are going to take them out backpacking with us. I also cut up some apples and we'll see how they do. The manual told us to dip the apples in a lemon juice solution before putting on the dehydrator, so we may be eating dried apples with a hint of lemon. :)

Here is Madera with her cone on, I put it on her this morning, so that I have record of how ridiculous the cone is.

And some photos of our yard...

 

I was so excited for this purchase for our house.

 

Planting grass...again

Today Mat and I planted some more grass where we had dug a 3-foot trench from the road to the house in order for Mat to lay pex to bring city water to our house. We planted grass earlier this spring, but either Maddy ate all the seed or it just didn't rain enough to start it growing like crazy. This time we pretty much followed the directions exactly.  Although we didn't have any straw to throw over top of the newly sowed seed, we improvised by putting some leaves over top...we'll see if it works.Last night in the forecast it was predicted that we would experience 50 mph winds and have a 60% chance of rain. We are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of this so called precipitation. (I really thought I'd left the arid western states!) I think it is possible that is has rained more out in Colorado and Utah this summer than in this supposed semi-tropical southern state.This weekend Mat, Maddy and I are going to backpack another section of the Appalachian Trail. Our trail head is just off of Interstate 26 about 20 minutes from our house then we'll hike on over to Erwin, TN.  Sara is being a willing driver for us by dropping us off on the side of the interstate and then a few days later coming to pick us up when we get done.  What will take us a couple days will take Sara about an hour to drive between...I really don't think we are paralleling the interstate we head over some hills and mountains and then veer back to the interstate for the pickup.