Rock Springs and Why You Are Safer From Gators On A Kayak

It was something quite random. My wife suggested we take a weekday trip to Rock Springs, a place not that far from our home. We both grew up here and had plenty of memories of going there as kids, then teenagers, and then as parents. As our population grew, the desire to join the crowd at the springs diminished. But, as we new retirees found out, just because there's a waiting line to get in on the weekends, doesn't mean that you can't walk right in on a weekday. One thing we learned from one of the park workers was that a significant amount of damage is being done to the springs by people trying to collect fossils. He showed us jagged edges of rock where someone had used a tool to chip away pieces. It seems like this kind of thing happens at most landmarks we visit. I sure wish people could look at beauty without breaking it.

We had plenty to tell each other about our trips to this place. Being married for 40 years doesn't mean there is nothing left to say, it means that you are helping each other remember things. For example, I never tire of hearing about Pam's dad and his friends when they were teenagers, going up into the head of the springs with a garden hose and a bicycle pump as a snorkel and finding a dead body. And I never get tired of telling her about me and my buddies driving here on our motorcycles when we were 15 years old. Hey, that's a long trip on a 90cc motorcycle! Mostly, we remembered the times when my extended family would gather there for special occasions and have a big picnic. 

Pam actually took our kids camping there without me, which I'm still scratching my head about, but she was off all summer and my work schedule back in those days was not great for camping trips. We took a walk to the campground, and finding it empty, decided we had to give it a shot. A few days later, we came back with camping gear and our kayak to see if it could still be as fun as it used to be.


It was...I got to demonstrate my new, improved skills at camping, learned from so many trips with my brothers, and I must say that once I iron out a few kinks, we will be one of those calm, collected, campers you rarely see...and I'm not including those that don't speak to each other at all.

One thing I learned is that a short extension cord isn't much use, if your wife can't lift one end of the picnic table to move it. The other main thing I need to figure out is how both of us can get an excellent night's sleep in that little tent with my twin mattress. This trip, we tried her on the mattress and me on the ground with the sleeping bag...so she froze to death, while I tried to find the one smooth spot on the ground. The compromise was that about 3 in the morning, we ended up on the mattress with the sleeping bag wrapped around us both...just like the good old days! Except that she informed me that from now on, I will be bringing that CPAP machine or else she will tape my mouth shut to stop the snoring.

We disagree on that part, because in order to snore I would require getting to sleep, which I'm pretty sure never happened. A larger mattress will be ordered and maybe a larger tent as well. Since Pam quickly took over the cooking, my life was mainly cleaning up, setting up, and packing up. Life was good, and even without sleep, we were happy. One reason for this was: Pam had discovered a secret recipe on Pinterest for keeping bugs away. All over me I had this oily, smelly stuff that pretty much made me feel like I was shopping in Bath and Body works...but it kept the no-see-ums at arm's distance...and they were out in force. I know that other parts of the country have these bugs, but if you have no defense against them, you are doomed. As a matter of fact, as locals do everywhere, we entertained ourselves by watching the people going down innertubes on the springs, doing little dances as they tried to avoid the bugs.

 The last part of this journey was to kayak the 8.5 mile run down the springs at King's Landing, which is just about 1/2 mile north of the campground. You pay $10 to launch your kayak and for another $10 they shuttle you back at the end of the day. King's Landing is a very cool little business. My only advice is to not accept their offer of a free beer....and I will get my wife back for her part in that little practical joke...I am quite sure that I was an internet sensation for a minute when their camera captured me opening the icebox of free beer to find only a fake king cobra inside...

 There was a small group of kayakers that started in front of us and a solitary paddleboarder. We stood out from the rest in that we are riding in our tandem kayak with only me paddling. Pam sat there, camera ready, as if I were the nature guide and she was the photographer come along to get images of elusive animals. Me, I enjoyed the chance to paddle off some of the food I had been eating and we were paddling downstream anyway. There were plenty of obstacles above and below the water and I often wondered how Paddle-Girl was going to do in front of us. She and Pam spotted a gator about an hour into the trip, but he was quick and I never got a look. Paddle-Girl paddled faster after that. I did notice then that paddleboards are not as fast as kayaks. I had suspected this before, but this trip confirmed it, and I was now convinced that I no longer needed to paddle faster than an alligator could swim, just faster than Paddle-Girl.

 This adventure turned out to be everything I had hoped for, we had great weather, not too hot, not too cold, plenty of quiet time and some friends we met along the way, and as it turned out, the whole group made it to the shuttle stop in one piece.

"We will go camping again!" said Pam, "...next year, BEFORE the no-see-um's  and mosquitoes arrive". 

 Thinking back, I'm not sure there are any places in Florida that are nicer than this, but Pam and I agree that we both think it's worth finding out....

First Time Out On A Snapdragon SUP

Driving In A Prius To Find What's Left Of Gatlinburg

It may surprise you to find out just how much get up and go the modern Toyota Prius has. What is less surprising is that it took every bit of that get up and go to make it up those Smoky Mountains. I'm not saying that large motorhomes towing Escalades were honking impatiently at me while I had the acceleration pedal nailed to the floorboard, but it was something like that. My wife prefers that I do the driving, so she is free to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I actually tried to make this arrangement better by getting her a GPS tablet so she could navigate. Now we have two cellphones, a car gps, and the tablet, all giving us different directions, while my wife is saying, "where's the button?"  Me? I'm about as calm as one can be. I'm driving a car that makes very little sound and gets better gas milage that anyone can believe. Usually, on a trip, we are getting 40-45 miles a gallon and this makes me very happy. I usually keep this display up where I can see it to remind me of why we have this car.
Then, there are the other times, when going uphill, with a semi truck riding my back bumper and the Prius engine sounding like it will explode any minute, while Pam is shouting, "Give me Warp 11!". I just wave and pull over to the side of the road, until every single car in the world that is faster than a  Prius passes by and then I continue.
Fortunately for me, I have experience with this. It is a little bit better than driving a old VW van uphill in the mountains. At least this car will get to 60 mph eventually. Not surprisingly, no other driver wants to find out how long it will take, so as soon as they recognize what I'm driving, they start trying to pass.

But, this is really about how beautiful the mountains can be in the winter. We got to see snow our first day and then the weather really let up and we were able to brave the drive over the pass and into Gatlinburg.

Long before we reached Gatlinburg, we could see the signs of forest fire and it still seems so strange that so recently everything was dry and now it is so wet. It was hard to tell if the trees were still alive, but they didn't look burned through like I have seen after other fires. The really interesting part was seeing that the evergreen trees seem mostly untouched.

Arrving in Gatlinburg made you do a doubletake. At first, it appeared that everything was okay after all, and then you realized, the firefighters made sure that main street survived no matter what. It was a smart move because a total shutdown of the town might have meant the end of it all for the business owners. We only found the destruction by driving on backstreets and looking up the side of the mountain. I feel sure that Gatlinburg will come back from this. We will make sure to do our fair share by coming up and driving mainstreet and buying things we don't need. The parking lots were pretty full and my secret free spots to park were all gone, so I'm thinking that Gatlinburg can still pull them in.

We left town before the weather started swinging back to a real winter time. When the locals are nervously looking at the news on TV and everybody is stocking up on food and booze, you know it is time for Floridians to get back home. So we went as fast as a Prius can go, still stopping here and there to look at the wildlife.

By the way...those aren't moose. We actually had somebody ask us about that while on the side of the road. I need to read up on elk though. Are the guys with antlers really hiding in the woods from hunters, or do they lose the antlers every year? My thinking was the leader was a large female and she had some juveniles with her. She just gave me that "no nonsense" vibe. Yep, I'm sure that was a female.

 

A Thrillride in December

There's nothing like ending the year out riding waves when the sun is shining and it's not too cold. We had days of decent waves in the middle of the week, and I was fortunate enough to get friends to go with me while I spent more time testing out the Brusurf JS Pro 8' 11" paddlesurf board. I actually paddled this board around a local lake recently, but the money you spend on this board is to get more thrills out of surfing in the ocean. At this size, it is smaller than most of the surfboards I have ridden in the last 20 years, although somewhat wider and thicker. One day, I did try surfing the board, prone paddling and all. It worked, but it was pretty strange to try to straddle a 31" wide board while waiting for waves. It works much better as a paddlesurfer and this last trip I began to truly appreciate what it can do much better than larger boards. It turns much sharper than even a longboard surfboard and is much faster.

It actually solves a question I had long ago: could there be a board that could enable me to catch any wave I wanted without losing that great feeling you get from a shortboard? Yes, this board does all that. It's light and easy to transport, can support up to 5 fins and looks great. It's much easier to get out through the inside break and easier to hang onto when you get caught inside.

But, as everybody knows, there must be some tradeoff, and this is it: Stability. At 31", you have a lot more tippiness to deal with, and it pretty much removes this board from consideration for a beginner. If there is one major issue for SUP surfers to deal with, it is standing up between waves, especially when it is not glassy calm. With this board, I spent a lot more time falling in the water, although I have yet to see a perfect day without some kind of cross swell or side chop. This slowed me down on positioning for waves, and I also ended up spending more time on my knees to converve energy for surfing. Over all, I rode so many good waves and had such a good time, it would be hard to turn away from this board, but until I master the narrower width, I'm getting that core workout that everyone comes to the sport seeking..

Notes From The Appalachian Trail: The Lessons Learned

I was very fortunate on this journey in that I had experienced hikers give me advice about what to bring, and a son that is my size and likes to buy very good gear. So, I was able to borrow some great stuff and mostly buy the right things for the trip...but still I made some mistakes and here is what I learned:

1) I used a Kelty 4500 Shadow backpack...borrowed from my son and that piece of gear was great. No complaints at all, except that I wished it could hold more food, and had an anti-gravity function.

2) Slumberjack sleeping bag...borrowed from my son. This kept me warm on the cold nights. When I buy one, I will make sure that I get the longer version so I can stretch all the way out at night....that part of the night when I still have hopes of falling asleep. I will also bring some kind of sleeping aid...either tea or Advil Nighttime.

3) Eureka! Solitaire Tent: This was a great idea. It doesn't weigh much, and it doesn't cost too much. Unfortunately, It needs stakes everywhere to stand up, and most of the time there were roots and rocks in the way. Next time I go shopping, I will look for a tent that I can sit up in and read, instead of lying there like I'm trapped in a coffin while trying not to freeze to death. By the way, any short people in the market for a almost new backpacking bivvy (mummy) tent...see me!

4) Suunto Traverse Alpha...smart hiking watch. This gadet is way cool, and once I understood that all it takes is a drop in barometric pressure for it to go into alarm mode, I was much more relaxed. Before that, I thought it was somehow hooked into NORAD and knew when doom was impending for us. This watch can easily go for a number of days without needing a charge, plus it looks VERY cool.

5) UnderArmour Compression shirt...this was the best idea that didn't work. This very tight shortsleeve t-shirt had me sweating in 40 degrees. Next time I'm packing a normal workout shirt just in case the temp rises above freezing during the trip!

6) Pam's homemade trail mix. This stuff was packed in small baggies for each day of the trip, and it became like Crack for me. I was told that the ingredients were so expensive that nobody could afford to sell it in a store, and this food is what kept me going. When I was feeling really generous, I let Paul and Chase have a little taste of it. Near the end of the trip, we were adding the crumbs to our oatmeal...best oatmeal ever...

7) Junkfood treats. Bad idea. Somehow, I was told that we would be burning so many calories that we could eat Snickers bars all day long and lose weight. Instead, I gained weight on the trip...still trying to figure that out.

8) Ramen Noodles....believe it or not, I've never had them before. These things are great with a pack of soup mix added. We mostly ate Mountain House freeze-dried food, which is apparently too expensive for true hikers to eat, so we looked like city-slickers, while REAL men ate Ramen.

9) UnderArmour Cold Gear Storm Beanie....the best friend a bald head ever had in the cold hiking weather!

10) Jackery Mini Premium portable charger...a little bit larger than a lipstick and kept my watch charged when I needed it. This would be great for charging up a cell phone as well.

11) Petzl Tikka XP Headlamp. I already had a good headlamp at home, but this thing was super lightweight and as we found out later, was as bright as a car headlight in the woods. I had a little bit of trouble figuring how to get the functions to work with only the one button, but once I did...I was very happy to have this item on the trail!

12) Silicone Collapsible cups...we loved these. You can buy them just about anywhere in the camping section. they fold up almost flat, weight very little and we used them for coffee, food, everything. The price for larger bowl-sized containers were a lot more expensive, but we may invest in that for the next trip.

12) Toilet paper....all I can say is bring more than you think you need. Somehow my brother convinced me all I needed a little pack of tissues that you give to kids in elementary school, just one for each day....maybe that would have worked if I skipped all of the junk food on the trail....just remember, when you run out of this, you get to use leaves....

Notes From The Appalachian Trail Part 10: Smokey Mountain Time

Probably the biggest surprise to me about backpacking was the emphasis on time. I'm the kind of guy that loves watches. I have many and am always looking for one more. I can't say exactly why, but it must be like women and shoes, or at least my wife and shoes. She has shoes she has never worn, but we have yet to pass by a single shoe sale without a 45 minute stop to see what she needs. I'm not quite that bad, but I could be..

My brother Paul on the other hand, disdains watches. Always has. They are a sign that you are beholden to the man, that somebody can make you be somewhere at a certain time. He gets there when he gets there..that is until we went hiking together. Suddenly, all day long we needed to know what time it was. I mean, we are out in the woods, everything we need is on our backs, nobody is expecting us, we either get where we are going, or we die trying, and the time isn't going to make much difference. We are told there will be one cellphone between all of us, and it won't get reception anyway. I knew enough to leave mine behind, my battery is good to about lunchtime on any given day, and without data, I wouldn't even be able to look at pictures of cats.

It turns out that my newest addition to my watch collection: the Sunnoto Traverse Alpha, was not to be an object of ridicule like my survival knife, but something that came in quite handy. #1..this baby held a charge for 2 days before I used the GPS hiking feature, and then I was able to quickly charge it using an inexpensive battery charger. We always knew what kind of progress we were making, which was very important when you were trying to make 13 miles a day. We knew when to step up the pace, when we could take longer breaks, our changes in altitude and temperature and more.

Unfortunately, the feature that I was the most excited about let me down. I pride myself on how many steps I can record in a day on various exercise bands I've owned and once even hit 30,000 steps in a day while on a camping trip with the boys, in which we walked all day long to stay warm and there was nothing else to do. On this trip, I was getting a lousy 16,000-17,000 steps after walking from dawn to dusk. No allowances made for the pack, climbing over trees, rocks, steep ascents, nothing.

Chase must take after his father. He brought a watch which never worked the whole trip, in fact I think he left it as a trail magic gift for somebody that would be willing to buy a battery for it. Paul, on the other hand is now thinking about what kind of watch he can buy that is MUCH superior to the Sunnoto Traverse Alpha.


Note: Timing is everything. Our original plan to hike in Maine was doused by Hurricane Matthew cancelling our flight. That was our last good weather opportunity to hit Maine this year. If we had waited 3-4 weeks before changing our plans to North Carolina, all we would be seeing would be burned out forests...if we got to go at all. Even when you don't have to punch a clock, the time matters....

Notes From The Appalachian Trail Part 9: The Cult Of Leaves

If you drive to North Carolina in the fall, the origin of any person you meet is most likely Florida. It means that millions of old folks from the sunshine state make an annual pilgrimage to the closest mountains to see what a season change looks like.

My plan has always been to avoid that situation, because who wants to hang around a bunch of old Floridians? I finally realized why I have been avoiding this time in the past...about half the men I ran into looked very much like me, and not all of them were older. However, if you have to be old and in North Carolina looking at the change of color in the leaves, there is no better way to do it than on the trail. The best parts of my days where just looking around in wonder at all of the color in front of me. I have been in the  mountains when there were no leaves in the winter and when everything was green in the summer, but I finally saw the reason so many people make this trip.

Being around all of this puts you in a different mindset, and I noticed that everyone on the trail was friendly. If you pass anyone, you stop for a few moments and swap stories, or if you are my brother,  you regale them with your exploits. These stories are about surviving blizzards, avalanches, bears, etc. Then you compare how many places you have seen and miles you have put in on the trail. I kept very quiet during these times, so as to seem a introverted through-hiker extraordinaire, but my brother made sure to point at me on every occasion, and say, yeah this is his first hike...at least nobody opened my backpack to see what extra junk I brought along that I didn't need..except for my huge survival knife.

It came to me, something that isn't so obvious now that I'm sitting in a civilized place, that the people on that trail are a very small subset of humanity that placed themselves there on purpose. I became convinced that some of the people I met would rather be on the trail than anywhere else in the world. People are nice, world politics is only something outsiders worry about...the weather is WAY more important. I started thinking that some of the hikers actually lived on the trail. I think it could be done. There is no rent, no police, little drama, at least when I wasn't getting storm warnings from my watch. After a few days I definitely saw that this was not just "backpacking", this was "doing the AT". I had joined the cult without knowing it.

One of first things you learn about the cult is "Trail Magic". This refers to items left at strategic locations on the trail as presents for hikers. I saw bags of kidney beans in front of a trail sign and one shelter had ramen noodles and cans of cooking gas. One shelter actually had a bottle of whiskey, but it had been opened and I wasn't feeling too sure of myself, concerning getting drunk out in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Life was exciting enough already.

I need to see those leaves again. My wife promises me that it will happen and we will join that pilgrimage on I-75 to the log cabins with the fantastic views, and walk the streets of Gatlinburg with crowds of suntanned Floridians, always knowing that there always be a flushable toilet somewhere nearby....