Viewing entries tagged
camping
It had been a while though since my last backpacking trip, so when a friend asked if we wanted to go very socially distanced backpacking (we hike at slightly different paces and we’d have all our own separate gear) on the Appalachian Trail then I jumped at the opportunity! A little bit of planning later and we had a section hike mapped out: Sam’s Gap to Spivey Gap along the NC-TN border.
127 gators. That's how many alligators I'd seen since I set off from the Suwanee Canal entrance of Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia at 10am on April 14. I know because I kept count.
The heat and humidity sulked over Kentucky like an unwelcome heavy blanket. In the Red River Gorge it lay so thick that the Kentucky bass could have risen from the water and thrived on the land gulping down swallows of wet air. Horseflies the size of fingers sliced through the haze with their glittering wings and left welts on sticky skin from their careening flights and sharp bites. At the campsite on the edge of Middle Fork Red River I melted. I slipped into the cool creek and watched crawdads dart from under polished stones.
Father’s Day is this weekend and instead of the tacky tie or discount power tools or new grilling tongs and apron, get your dad something that will make him truly happy: experiences. Science actually says spending money on experiences provides much more happiness than purchasing material things, and you know we can't argue with science. Here are a few ideas of affordable experiences in the Triangle for you to get out in nature with your “old man” and have a Father’s Day to remember!
I was glad I wasn't relying on my hammock. I wanted to try out a campground at Jordan Lake to scout out locations for sunrise and sunset photography, but it was overcast and there was nowhere to hang a hammock. Instead I lounged at the water's edge of Jordan Lake with McCrae and Ryder, bright orange tent staked in the gravel pad against the lake breeze.
or our big backpacking weekend we actually ended up extremely lucky. We were about a mile or two away from Mount Pisgah when the “check oil” light started flashing on the dash of my PT Cruiser. Since we didn’t have reliable GPS in the mountains and were relying on directions that pretty much said “get on the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive until you find the campground,” we had no idea if we would end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception and no way to get help. It seemed just a matter of minutes before the mountain men emerged and we would find ourselves in the middle of a B-list horror film, so it was a great relief when we made it to Mt. Pisgah campground, and there, sitting obligingly on a shelf in the country store were a few quarts of motor oil. Heaven help us, we were in luck!
