The G-Bachs

A Summer day Hike!

2011-07-18T10:35:00.004-05:00

It’s been awhile since we have been hiking because the weather has been unbearably hot this summer. The last time we went hiking was to the Walls of Jericho in Hytop in early May. That was the first really warm day of the summer and we ran out of water on the way back up the mountain, and Joe just about died of heat exhaustion! While we were at the Jericho trailhead we noticed a somewhat new trail called the Bear Den Point trail, and decided it was worth a try someday.
It’s now mid July and we finally have a Saturday with a weather prediction under 90 degrees and fairly dry air! We had to take advantage of this and get out and do some hiking. We decided to try out the Bear Den trail and see if it’s worth a second visit in the future.
A description Joe found on the internet described the trail as a 4.7 mile easy, pleasant hike through the woods. We started off and immediately noticed that there were several areas of growth over the trail. We thought to ourselves, does anybody use this trail? We shrugged it off and proceeded, thinking, at least it’s not poison ivy! We were pleased to see a variety of pretty wildflowers, different colored mushrooms and even a cute little bitty froggy! The trail was pleasant for the first mile, until the trail left the plateau top and headed down into the deep woods. We quickly got used to eating spiderwebs and tiptoeing through poison ivy patches.
As we got deeper and deeper into the forest, the foliage got thicker and thicker…not good for Joe, who has a phobia of large plants since childhood, just ask some of his old scout buddies who used to get a kick out of chasing him around with a plant!
Our hiking sticks became our plant whackers, and half of our hike we had to bushwhack through stinging nettle and what Joe called “nightmare plants” that were thick and usually taller than we were. This trail was anti-maintained and apparently very seldom used. When we weren’t whacking our way through the thickets, we were tiptoeing through poison ivy and stinging nettles. Poor Amber found out the hard way why stinging nettles are called stinging nettles. Luckily we had a little first aid kit with some moist wipes that made the stinging go away. 4.7 miles later we finally arrived back at our car. Joe now remembers the other reason he doesn’t like to go hiking in the summer in Alabama, besides the extreme heat.
Our hike was over but our nightmare was just beginning. On the road Amber starting looking at her legs and saw little bitty specs moving around. She picked one up and asked me, is this a tick?? It was literally the size of pinhead. The more she looked the more she found, as she was screaming the whole time. We pulled over into the parking lot of a closed down gas station in Skyline to de-tick ourselves. It took us over an hour checking each other for ticks, and easily found 100 of them all over our legs and feet! We had no idea ticks could be so small. Most of them looked like little bitty specs of dirt and they were attached to our skin. There were so many of them and they were microscopic!! Aaaaaagh!!!
Our socks went in the garbage can, and the rest of our clothes and gear we soaked in the tub to drown any ticks that were hiding. Once home, we thouroughly checked each other over and kept finding them. We didn’t get to bed until around 2 am, and dreamed about ticks and nightmare weeds! We will definitely not go back to that area ever again.

Back to Stone Door!

2010-08-02T12:43:00.023-05:00

Since hiking at the Smokies we’ve wanted to get back to the Stone Door area and hike some more of the challenging trails which we weren’t quite ready for, last time we were there. Record highs over the past few weekends have kept us from doing any hiking. Finally last weekend, a Saturday rolled around with a forecast high under 95, so we headed out.
This time we were going to tackle the Big Creek Gulf Trail with a side trip to Ranger Creek Falls at the bottom of the canyon. This trail is one of the most challenging trails in the park, and Joe remembers it vividly from his 70 mile hike as a Boy Scout. This was when Joe learned from personal experience about the importance of having water when hiking. When he hiked this trail at age 12 he was totally unprepared, and had to rely on his scoutmaster’s water to keep him alive. We felt that since we hiked to Chimney Tops in the Smoky Mountains a few weeks ago, we were physically ready to hike this trail, as challenging as it was.
Going hiking seems to be a growing addiction. The more we hike, the more we want to hike. When we first got married, Amber wasn’t really into hiking. She would go with Joe every now and then but she didn’t really enjoy it. But now after working up to hiking we both look forward to the next hiking trip and discovering what natural wonders we may encounter next. Saturday morning, Joe had a hard time sleeping in since he was so excited to go hiking again on this trail. He woke Amber up as gently as he could by kissing her all over her cute, little sleepy head.
We started today’s hike on the same trail that we started hiking the last time we were here, the Laurel Trail. This trail was simply a way of getting to our destination trail, and we thought of it no more then just that, a long but easy 3 mile hike through the woods. We didn’t realize this trail would set the tone for the adventures we would encounter throughout the rest of the day, encounters with nature. We heard and saw hawks and different types of birds flying through the trees but our most memorable experiences today would be with the little bitty creatures. This trail was full of little froggies, different kinds of crickets we had never seen before, and beautiful butterflies. One even found a nice place in the sunlight right in front of us and posed just long enough for us to get a good picture of him before flying away.
Three miles and two hours later we finally arrived at the Big Creek Gulf Trail. From here the trail got interesting, as Joe likes to call it whenever a trail gets dynamic. The trail steeply descended into the canyon on an old logging road, a very rocky old logging road. Joe remembers hiking up this, what seemed like an eternity of climbing when he was a scout. Throughout the day we were on and off this old logging road as the trail traversed the passable sections of road, but veering off on a rocky and twisty, and sometimes steep bypass around sections of the old road that had been washed away, the whole while we were following alongside Big Creek. This is an interesting area.
When we first got to the bottom of the canyon there was water flowing in the creek. But after a half hour of hiking, the creek turns silent because the water disappears into a cave and reappears a few miles later downstream. Also since this area is so lush with vegetation, it didn’t really feel like we were hiking at the bottom of the canyon. All we could see were trees, cliffs, and an occasionally a dry riverbed. As we hiked deeper into the canyon we saw many more cute little froggies and even came across a baby cicada, still in his shell. He seemed to be having trouble moving. We wondered how much longer until he would break out of his shell and fly away, but didn’t have time to stand around and watch and wait.
It felt like it was dark because of the dense canopy of trees above us. Most of the trail seemed really dark, especially when the trail took a bend and put us in the shadow of a canyon wall. A lot of the time we were rock-hopping and avoiding close-encounters with evil poison ivy, which was everywhere down here.
After a couple hours of hiking, we arrived at the junction of the Ranger Falls trail. This trail was a little harder to follow, as it crossed the dry, rocky bed of Big Creek. We got off the trail a few times because we lost sight of the markings on the trees that indicate where the trail is. Amber saw a little snake on the rocks, and gave a little yelp! It was a cute little bitty snake with an orange ring around his neck. We wanted to catch him but he was too fast, and slithered down into the rocks and hid. We had to backtrack to find the trail, but finally got back on course. Ranger Falls was a half-mile away from the main trail, along side a day tributary stream bed leading to the waterfall. Joe couldn’t help, but wonder what would happen if a soaker of a storm suddenly came over and turned these peacefully dry creek beds into raging rapids. We would probably be stranded for a while.
Closer to the waterfall, we could hear the sound of rushing water. Since it had been a dry summer, we were wondering if there would be any water falling. We arrived at the falls, put our packs down, and Amber was the first to go behind the waterfall. Ranger Falls is an interesting waterfall; it doesn’t have a plunge pool like most falls do. All the water drains down into a cave at the base of the cliff, which explains why the stream leading to the waterfall was dry. It’s probably the same cave that Big Creek occupies. Looking at the waterfall and the surrounding area, it looks like the waterfall was created by a giant sinkhole. It makes for a good place to take a natural shower in the summer. The water felt good after hiking for hours in the hot summer.
We headed off, since the sun was starting to set. From the junction of Ranger Falls, the Big Creek Gulf trail followed the creek bed for another couple miles before junctioning with the Connector trail, then a mile climb straight up to Stone Door. We had a nice little scare on our way up… There was a branch across the trail, and Joe started kicking it to try to get it out of the way, then he noticed in his peripheral vision, less than a foot away from his left foot, something long and black was moving. He looked over at it, saw that it was a big black snake, and let out a high-pitched girlish scream! The snake was care-free until he heard that scream. He curled up into a ball and watched us closely. We slowly walked by him, and he watched us closely. Phew! He wasn’t poisonous, but we didn’t want to get bit anyway.
We arrived at the junction of the Connector trail, and started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. The sign said it was only for a mile, but it sure didn’t feel like a mile. We just kept going up and up and up, steeper and steeper. We just kept at it, slow and steadily. Whenever we started feeling tired or sick, it was time to drink water. The water really is the source of life.
Finally, after climbing what seemed like forever, we got to the wooden staircase that took us up to the base of Stone Door. We rested…tired and exhausted! From here, it was the grand staircase through the stone door, then a mile of easy walking to the ranger station where our car was waiting for us. We ended up hiking for 9 miles again. This was definitely the most challenging and physically intensive trail we have hiked so far. At least until we go to Utah next month…
On the way home we stopped by A&W and got some root beer floats, since Joe had been craving root beer since Ranger Falls!

Barenaked Ladies and Smoky Mountain Climbing

2010-07-21T10:44:00.033-05:00

It all started with the band. We have been wanting to see Barenaked Ladies for a long time, but we usually just miss them.

Either we’re out of town when they come somewhere close, or we just miss them by a few days when we happen to travel to one of their tour stops. This time it was Joe’s work and the fact that he was in ratings that made us miss their concert in Nashville recently. So we did the next best thing, we went to see them in Knoxville, TN and decided to make a mini vacation out of it and do some hiking in the Smokies.

Joe was able to take that Friday off so we could leave early and have plenty of time to get there, find our hotel in Pigeon Forge and get back Knoxville and find the Tennessee Theater.Apparently, there was some other concert in the park going on down the street with a

performance by Blues Traveler, so traffic was a lot busier then we

thought it would be. We soon discovered that we would have to park a ways and walk. We found a place about a mile away and had to hustle to make it to the theater on time.

It was a cool place, a 1930’s era theater complete with a marquee in lights. If it weren’t for the marquee we would never have known this was a theater. It was just a big, old-fashioned, multi-story brick building with a lot of windows, something that belonged in 1930’s cityscape.After we got through the front door, it was a completely different building with a spacious front door, it was a completely different building with a lobby and two grand

staircases, one on each side.

The auditorium was a step back in time as well; it looked like this place had been restored to its original splendor.

The concert was awesome. It was great to see one of the greatest bands of our generation perform live. But of course, as with any band with twenty years of greatest hits, there were songs we wished they would’ve played but just didn’t have the time to.The next morning we had to be somewhere we weren’t looking forward to, a meeting that loomed over the first half of our trip.

Joe had gotten some pretty good deals on a hotel but managed to get wrapped into a time share pitch. On the phone they told us we could

choose any time we wanted, to get the presentation out of the way, but

when we registered into our hotel room we heard a very different story. We had to attend a 1:00 pm sales pitch that would last about 2

hours… so much for our plans for hiking in the Smokies. The morning of the meeting we called the actual place we were going and asked if we could squeeze into the morning presentation and luckily we could. Well, lesson learned. We will never do this again. It was a very lengthy, hard sale, one on one with a sales rep. That lasted over three hours including a tour of the grounds and a dream cabin that we could own 1/25th of for a nice little second mortgage. But we would get super low rates if

purchased today. We had to say no to three different salesmen, each pushing harder then the former. They just couldn’t seem to understand the concept of us wanting to live a debt free life.

With the time we had left in the day we grabbed our hiking packs and headed for the mountains. Joe had been researching hiking trails in the Smokies before coming here, and there were a couple of trails he wanted to tackle if there was enough time.

The first of which was the Chimney Tops trail.

This trail looked very interesting and challenging and we had

heard stories confirming its challenging nature. It was only 2 miles in length, but in those 2 miles, the trail climbed over 2,000 feet straight up to the top.

The road twisted and turned has we drove closer to our destination. We forgot how beautiful this area was. As we got closer to the trailhead, we approached an overlook where we could see the top of the jagged peak we were about to climb to. A few yards and a tunnel later we got to the trail.

The first hundred or so yards of the trail was relatively easy and crossed a couple large streams. Some people were down in the stream playing in the water. The sky was overcast, and sounds of distant thunder made us wonder if we should go back to the car and wait for a storm to pass,

but we pressed on, hoping that we might make it back before the storm came through.

After the first hundred yards the trail began to climb. It crossed over another stream and began to climb even more steeply. We

just took our time and went a gentle pace since we knew it would just get harder. As challenging as this trail is known to be, it was surprising to see so many people, mainly families hiking along with us. We climbed and climbed and decided to rest on a log for a little while thinking maybe we were halfway there.

We climbed some more and crossed the creek a couple more times before climbing some more and reaching the half-way point. From here it just got steeper. The trail turned into a stone staircase that relentlessly climbed up for the next mile alongside a humble mountain stream that got smaller as we got higher. Looking up, the summit still seemed so far away, and we knew this trail wouldn’t stop until we got there.

Finally we got past the hardest part, climbed a couple switchbacks, then the trail leveled out as we headed for the chimney top. The vegetation got thinner and the trail got narrower with a steep ledge on the side. There were places where the park provided handrails because the trail was so narrow. We finally got to the chimney top.

This was a formation of treeless slate rock that formed a bald, but jagged peak… this was the end of the family friendly portion of the trail.The trail used to continue around the base of the formation but was closed for rehabilitation. Of course Joe wanted to climb to the very top, but Amber didn’t share the enthusiasm, especially after a series of dreams she had before, where we

were climbing something similar but fell off. Joe assured her that this wouldn’t happen but none the less she wouldn’t climb it.

Joe started climbing by himself. At first it was easy but it quickly got steeper and harder to find the next step or handhold.

Looking up, the top seemed so far away but he pressed on. The tree line finally topped off and he could see the mountains around him, halfway up the rocky formation.

This was where the formation got steeper and narrower and more exposed, and each step made his leg shake for fear of heights. This was the highest he was going to go today. The view of the surrounding mountains was beautiful. He could look down and see the overlook we stopped at on the way to the trailhead where we could see the top. He snapped a few pictures and we headed down.The hike down was actually harder then we thought it would be. Hiking down that steep for that long puts a lot of stress on leg muscles that we aren’t used to using.

We made it back to the car still dry.

Maybe we’ll come back here in the future and attempt to make it to the peak, after a couple more years of hiking and climbing, when our fear of heights won’t be so bad.Before we headed back to the hotel we decided there was time to hike a short trail, so we went to Laurel Falls. This trail was just a mile and a half long, to a nice waterfall and back that was paved the whole way. We figured this would be a quick and easy trail and a nice way to end our day of hiking. Almost halfway to the waterfall we heard thunder, and then felt a couple drops of rain. Those drops of rain led to more, harder drops of rain until it became a total downpour.

We didn’t have any ponchos or umbrellas with us, we didn’t even have our backpacks with us since this was supposed to be a quick and easy trail. We were too far along to turn back to the car so we pressed on and got completely soaked. At least it was warm outside. By the time we got to the waterfall, the rain had let up enough for us to take pictures. We headed back to the car, rung out our clothes and headed for the hotel where a nice warm shower was waiting for us, then to pizza hut!

We headed home the next day the scenic way but unfortunately not the way we had planned due to the road being closed. We later found out that the road was closed because of a landslide.

We stopped over in Chattanooga for some BBQ, then explored a little bit.

We happened upon a railroad museum that had a running steam locomotive. We definitely had to stop to take pictures.

We eventually got home to look forward to the start of another work week.

Hike to Buggytop

2010-06-17T19:41:00.010-05:00

Getting ready for our upcoming hiking trip to the Smokies, and eventually our hiking trip to Utah we decided to take a little trip back to Cumberland Plateau. We were originally planning to go back to Stone Door and hike the more challenging Big Creek Gulf trail, but we got a late start so Joe let Amber pick the trail today. We have a nice map book of

Tennessee that has a list of popular hiking trails inside the front cover.

Amber, reading through the list saw a cute little trail called Buggytop, so naturally she picked that one. The map said that this trail was a four mile trip, there and back again. We weren’t quite sure what that meant, if it was two miles there and back or four miles there and back. So we mentally prepared ourselves for an eight mile day.We arrived at Buggytop right on the tail of a soaker of a storm, so the trail was nice,

wet and steamy for us. We hit the trail and noticed that there were a lot of pretty butterflies flying around. We tried to take a picture of one of them, but they wouldn’t stay put. The first mile was along the ridge top and was very sloppy and buggy. We got to a sign/register that showed us the trail map and luckily it was only a 2 mile trail.

Amber found out early on not to touch anything green because it was probably poison ivy. Her leg isn’t itching, which means that either she isn’t allergic to poison ivy or she didn’t brush against it hard enough. We usually go hiking in the winter, and we were reminded today of that reason… Poison ivy and bugs were everywhere.

Mile two was down into a box canyon and at times steep and r

ocky, and it took extra caution not to slip and fall because of the recent rain. We arrived at a bluff overlooking the box

canyon where Buggytop Cave is and we could hear the roaring of water exiting from the cave entrance below. It was time to go down into the box canyon, this was the fun part. The trail

immediately went down a broken up section of the rocky bluff and Amber accidentally found out that she could almost do a complete split, but luckily caught herself before going all the way down to the ground. The trail was definitely getting interesting. With poison ivy everywhere, climbing down the rocky bluff took creative foot and hand work to not touch any of the evil plants.

After the rocky bluff and a narrow ledge, the trail went steeply down a muddy hill with only tree roots and small embedded stones to aide us down without sliding. Amber had her second attempt at defying gravity as her foot slipped and she almost fell completely, but was able to catch

herself just inches from the ground. We arrived at Buggytop Cave and immediately felt the cool, dry air coming out. It was a

nice contrast from the hot steamy forest we had been hiking in.

Buggytop Cave has an enormous entrance with a river flowing out, and then promptly falling down some cascades onto a rocky stream bed. Since it was so humid outside, there was a great fog protruding from the entrance, making for an eerie sight. We snapped a couple pictures and headed back up. The trail going back up the bluff line was actually easier than i

t was coming down, and the poison ivy was much easier to avoid. We almost made it to the car completely unscathed, if it weren’t

for a misstep on a slippery rock by Amber which sent her hurling into a patch of Virginia creeper. Luckily it wasn’t poison ivy.All in all it was a good trail with some moderately difficult portions which Joe thinks made it even more of an interesting hike. As we arrived to the car, our shoes, ankles and legs were nice and muddy. Until the next hike.

Vacation Trip to Utah 2009! (a year later and we’re finally getting this posted)

2010-06-13T16:43:00.010-05:00

After another grueling beginning of a school year and sweeps ratings periods at the station, its time to head out away on vacation, far away in Utah...four states away from work, from being able to get called in if something crazy happens. Away from the screaming kids and demanding bosses.
We found a great deal through Continental Airlines that made it possible for us to take this trip. But of course the catch is to leave really early in the morning from a city four hours away in Atlanta. Luckily Joe was able to get off early the day before, so we could take our time to get there and stop for a nice bite of BBQ in Chattanooga on the way over. We stayed at Joe's Aunt Hazel, who was also nice enough to get up at 5:00 am to give us a ride to the transit station. Luckily there was a train station close to her house that took us straight to the airport. We had timed it perfectly so we would make our flight without having to rush, but we found out at the last minute that we had to check our bag and pay a hefty twenty dollars to do so. We ended up having to run to our terminal to catch our flight. That was awful!
Our trip there was uneventful. Amber's mom and sister met us in the airport, and it was cold there compared to Atlanta. We spent the day in Salt Lake, mainly at This is the Place park pioneer village. We learned many things including how a spindle works, how the pioneers made yummy apple cider, and how a family of ten people can live in a one room cabin. It's amazing how spoiled we have become. Joe was able to go the General Conference Priesthood session that night, which was a good experience for him since he had never been to General Conference at the Conference Center before. We ended up getting home late that night, where Brianna (Amber's sweet little cousin) had fallen asleep waiting for us to get there.
For the majority of the week Joe had big plans to explore the wondrous state of Utah. Of course we should all know by now that Joe likes to think big...it drives his boss crazy sometimes. We only had a week but Joe has a nice map of Utah that he just can't put down. The more he studied the map, the more places we wanted to go. In between our explorations of the state, we spent time with family, and even included family with us as we explored. It's so hard on trips like these to see everybody and spend enough time with everybody so that they feel like they've had their fair share of time with Amber and Joe, since we only get out to Utah once a year.
We wanted to go and see Amber's friend Melissa down in Cedar City, so that gave Joe a chance to plan a nice little scenic drive to Cedar City and catch a plethora of natural Utah gems. We were able to talk Amber's sister into coming with us and letting us use her car. It was a fun drive. It is amazing how vast the state of Utah is. The terrain just changes so much as you travel through the state. There are the brown and tan rugged mountains of central east Utah and the coal mining towns. Then south of I-70 the landscape dramatically changes to more of a rolling hills prairie. A couple hours later it turns into a Colorado style pine and spruce forest as you go over Boulder Mountain with views of different style mountains in the distance. A couple hours later, another dramatic change as the pine and spruce forests give way to a desert of stone as we come into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument area. The drive through this was by far the most interesting of the day as the road wound around through stone canyons, straddled the tops of narrow ledges, and hugged the sides of stone walls with a sheer cliff as the shoulder of the road. You don't want to make any driving mistakes there. One wrong turn and its good-bye. Luckily there was a nice concrete barrier to serve as a guardrail on those parts of the road. We hit Bryce Canyon National Park before heading over to Cedar City.
After Bryce, we thought we were taking a shorter way but ended up winding around through a volcanic forest and past Cedar Breaks national monument. Wow, there sure are a lot of national monuments in Utah. Needless to say, we got to Cedar City a couple hours late. But with the scenery so spectacular, it didn't feel like we had been driving ten hours. It didn't feel near as long as the four hour drive back home on I-15 in the middle of the night. The rest of the week was spent with different family members driving around closer to Helper.
While Joe was looking through that map, he discovered a really interesting looking area called the San Rafael Swell. We had planned a day for Amber’s dad and grandma to take us through the swell in her dad’s 4x4 truck. We drove to the northern most overlook over the swell called the wedge overlook, nicknamed “little grand canyon”. It was pretty impressive. Most people don’t even know this place exists. We attempted to drive into the swell but got stopped by flat tire. While Amber’s dad, with a little help from Joe, troubleshooted the tire situation, we took some of the time to take some interesting pictures of each other…Joe even talked Amber into laying down on a rock for a cute picture. With the spare tire as a primary tire, we had gone as far as we could go today into the swell. We found out at the service station in Price what the culprit of the flat tire was, a wedge-shaped rock, a perfect triangle that just happened to be in the perfect position for us to run over it.
We managed to get back over to the swell the next day, but this time with Amber’s brother in his VW Jetta with super thin tires. The 25 mile trek through the northern portion of the swell on the gravel desert road was scenic, but at the speed we had to restrict our driving to in that vehicle made the trip seem extra long and bumpy. We’ll definitely have to come back here again in the future with a four wheel drive vehicle.
Lately Joe has had quite the fascination with ghost towns and Utah has plenty of them especially east Utah with the mountains being as rich in coal as they are. Joe has started collecting pictures of these ghost towns and took this trip as an extra opportunity to expand his ghost town portfolio. Amber’s mom was able to drive us around for a day to explore several of the ghost towns near Helper, Price and Scofield. We explored up the consumers area starting with the former town of Coal City. Since this is on private land, there are actually a few ruins to prove that there was once a town there. Many of the old mining camps on public property usually fall victim to environmental “reclaiming” acts which demolish coal camp ruins and basically erase all signs of history.
After exploring Coal City and taking lots of pictures we went to National just up the street and saw a couple of ruins which were unfortunately hard to get to because of the thick growth of sage brush. Joe and Amber’s mom braved the brush to explore the ruins and came back with a couple of scratches and sticky seeds all over them. Amber was glad that she didn’t follow them to the ruins. We couldn’t find any ruins of Sweet or Consumers, although there is a modern operating coal mine where the ancient coal mine used to be.
From here on out we were adventuring, following the dirt roads over the mountains to wherever they took us. It was a little nerve racking at times since the road was so narrow with a steep cliff at the shoulder at times. The most interesting part of the road took us down a steep set of switchbacks down to the other side of the mountain. We explored Clear Creek which is actually still somewhat habited. It was interesting to see how some of the newer houses where built onto the foundations of houses from the early 1900’s. We hit Scofield, took a few pictures and headed home to Helper.
Amber's birthday was Saturday so we all got together on Friday and had a family cook-out at Amber's grandparent’s house. As usual, the week flew by way to fast and vacation was over before we knew it. We stopped by a couple ghosts town on the way out of Helper and also managed to go and see Bridal Veil Falls before stopping at Amber’s cousin’s house in Salt Lake where we were staying the night since we had to be at the airport so early the next morning.
We flew back to Atlanta Sunday, and had the four hour drive home to look forward to. It was nice to be home again.
To see more pictures from our trip, visit our facebook pages at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=579500130#!/album.php?aid=335920&id=579500130&ref=pb
and
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=579500130#!/album.php?aid=112696&id=761653509&ref=pb

Hiking Trip to Stone Door

2010-03-27T22:37:00.013-05:00

Over the past few months we’ve been going on little hikes whenever a dry weekend presented itself. We’ve been going on short hiking trips to Sipsey, Monte Sano and Land Trust trails. Our goal, to build up strength and endurance to be able to take on the more interesting hiking destinations around. Granted, Sipsey is a pretty interesting place, but we haven’t been able to take on the more interesting trails just yet.
Today (actually, last Saturday now) we decided to push ourselves to the next level, and take on a chunk of South Cumberland Recreation Area: Stone Door/Greeter Falls area. Joe knew about this place because it was his first experience with long distance hiking as a boy scout at age 12. Those were fond, yet painful memories since he had no idea what he was getting himself into, a 70 mile hike in one week.
The first leg of our trip took us down the Laurel Trail, 3 miles to the next trailhead. Joe remembered that this trail seemed to last forever, and that hasn’t changed after 18 years. The next leg of our hike took us to Greeter Falls. This trail was only a mile, but much more interesting. We had to cross a swingy, bouncy bridge over an impressive waterfall, Boardtree Falls. The trail then took us along a dynamic route along the base of a bluff line under multiple stone overhangs and through some fun boulder gardens.
Greeter Falls was definitely the highlight of today’s hike. It is split up into two waterfalls, the upper falls and lower falls. The upper falls was impressive, but it was only a primer to what we were about to see at the lower falls. Getting to the lower falls was an adventure in itself. We had to climb down a 100+ foot sheer cliff by way of spiral staircase. Wow, we have never seen a spiral staircase on a hiking trail before. After the spiral staircase, a set of wooden steps down, leading to a grand staircase down to the plunge pool. After all of the rain we’ve had lately, the waterfall was quite impressive. The site, along with the breeze and the roaring, thundering sound was breathtaking. We’re glad we came here.
The Greeter Falls hike was a spur off of our loop. We hiked back to our loop and continued along the Big Creek Rim Trail 3.2 miles to Great Stone Door. Those 3 miles were by far the longest 3 miles of the day. Joe somehow seems to recall this trail being shorter, but we were not sure what he was thinking eighteen years ago. Wow, has it really been that long? By the time we got to Stone Door, our feet were about to fall off and we could’ve drank an ocean. Of course when we got to Stone Door, we had to hike to the bottom and back since we were there. I guess we should have counted how many steps there were to the bottom and back. It felt like a hundred, especially after hiking those 3.2 miles. We just took it easy on the last mile back to the car.
When we started hiking today, we thought we would be hiking for five, maybe six miles, but we ended up hiking over 9 miles. The longest we’ve hiked before this in our marriage, probably since Joe was in Russia was three miles total. We probably will be feeling this for the rest of the week.

P.S. Joe’s feet had several blisters on them, because he was just wearing an old pair of tennis shoes, he didn’t have hiking boots. My feet were just a little sore, because I had just gotten a nice new pair of hiking boots. Our legs were a little sore the next day, but we were not sore for the whole week. We had a great time. We are looking forward to going hiking again.

The night out at a fancy restaurant!

2010-02-01T19:44:00.005-06:00

Usually we don’t go to fancy restaurants. Living a humble lifestyle, if we ever eat out, it’s usually either at a local fast food chain or a family restaurant. Last year Joe put quite a few hours in at the station, putting together a new graphic look, saving the station thousands of dollars. Joe wasn’t about to get a raise or compensation for it, but he was given a gift card from the news leadership team for Cotton Row, a fancy restaurant downtown on the square. We have been holding on to the gift card for some time now, hoping there’s no expiration date on it. We finally decided to cash it in this past weekend and go on a date to the fancy restaurant.
Earlier in the day before we went we decided to look at the menu online and see what we all had to choose from, expecting there to be a world of variety. But instead we mainly found seafood dishes which I don’t really care for and most of them were French words and specialty dishes that took a dictionary to understand. We were getting a little bit scared; hopefully they had something we both would like. We got there in the evening and it was freezing outside. Of course we would pick the coldest night of the year to do this.
We had a candlelit table and the restaurant was interesting. They had preserved the history of the old Huntsville building and used that as part of their décor. The walls were ancient brick, and you could see the old wooden support beams in the ceiling. This building used to be a bank and the vault is still in the wall, pretty interesting.
When the waiter came by he explained the menu and had to translate a few words for us. Luckily there were some added dishes that weren’t on the menu and both sounded more appeasing than seafood at the moment.
We ended up ordering a dish of Marscapone Gnocchi, which is basically potato dumplings with some yummy sauce; to our surprise they were really good. I got duck breast with some side of vegetables and pasta mixture. And Joe got what the waiter called the crème de la crème of steak, the Kobe Beef dish.

The waiter said this was so good because the cow was on a careful diet which included white wine and classical music. We thought it was a joke and Joe had to ask if he was serious.
I’ve never heard of feeding a cow alcohol and constantly playing classical music for him. Apparently it has an effect on the tenderness of his muscles. Both dishes were really good.
I’ve never eaten duck before and I was afraid to try it. Joe said it probably tastes like chicken, but after trying it we both think it tastes much better than chicken. The vegetable pasta mixture was really good too, I wish I knew how they made it. It looks like we’ll be doing some duck hunting in the stores now.

Joe’s meat was also really good. Maybe we should go out and get us a cow and play some Mozart for it through Joe’s sound system. Dessert was also good, different, but good. I got a Banana Bavarian something and Joe got peanut butter and jelly something with ice cream, we enjoyed it.
The atmosphere took a while to get used to. Candlelit tables surrounded by rich people in suits who were very chatty, was a big difference from Arby’s and Popeye’s that we’re used to.

Before this, the most expensive restaurant we’ve gone to was Olive Garden. We were discussing how much of a different lifestyle rich people like this have, going out to fancy restaurants every other night to socialize with other rich friends over a glass of expensive wine.
The biggest shock of the night was the bill. We expected it to be high, but not this high. Our total was $121.00, just for the two of us, wow! Joe’s beef was fifty-five dollars.

They must have played that classical music through a high-dollar Bose system! That’s probably the best steak that Joe will ever have eaten.
It was a nice treat but we probably won’t do that again for a long time. Luckily Joe’s gift card paid for a hundred dollars of it, leaving only twenty-one dollars plus tip for us to pay out of pocket. All in all it was a really nice evening with each other out on the frozen town.

The Wooly Worm came to our house!

2009-10-17T17:17:00.008-05:00

So we came home after a day full of shopping, put all the groceries away and did some cleaning up. Joe decided to go on the front porch and put the cover over the grill for the winter. Picking the cover up off the ground, he noticed that quite a few critters had made their home underneath the cover over the summer. Most of bugs were Gemini Crickets, spiders and a couple of flies. But there was one thing that he definately did not expect to see.... a wooly worm! Now we had never heard of these before until Channel 19 did a report last year about weather folklore and predicting winter. Joe had to find some pictures of wooly worms to use for the story since you can supposedly predict how harsh or mild a winter will be by the length of his orange band of color.

What he was doing on our front porch, will never know, I guess he just found some shelter underneath an unused vinyl tarp. Now the tarp is gone, we hope he will be okay. Here are a couple of pictures we took of him. Aren't I brave? One thing interesting that we found out, when they get scared, they curl up into a little fuzzy ball like rolly pollies do... he's cute!

Creepy Crawler Bug!!

2009-07-28T18:07:00.007-05:00

So I was just sitting out on the front porch with the computer checking my e-mail. I glanced up to the walkway and saw this big bug coming towards me. Having never seen this particular kind of bug before, I wanted to catch it so I could show Joe and see if he knew what it was. I ran inside, grabbed a glass jar and came back outside and he was gone. A few seconds later he came back out from the grass onto the walkway, so I acted swiftly and trapped him in the glass jar. Meanwhile, waiting for Joe to come home I did some researching online and found out he was something called a cow killer. Joe came home, looked at the bug and confirmed what I now knew. He said that's a cow killer! The first he has ever seen in the state. Usually they're only in Florida.
While I was online,I found out....Red velvet ant or "cow killer" The females are wingless and are sometimes mistaken for a large, hairy, orange and black ant. These "ants" are actually wasp! A solitary wasp, the velvet ant does not live in colonies or have a "nest". They are found crawling through lawns, digging around soil, or even in garages where they have wandered in by accident. Velvet ants are not aggressive and will try to escape from you. The females have a very painful sting if handled. The name "Cow Killer Ant" was given to the velvet ant because of the reputation of the female's sting. It is said that the sting is so painful that it could kill a cow. This handsome insect does make a sound (especially when stepped on) but the squeaks of the cow killer ant would hardly be heard over the painful screams, if the person stepping on the wasp was barefoot.

P.S a week later I caught another one in our yard. So it seems like they're migrating to North Alabama, so be careful when you walk outside barefoot.

Our Special Spot!

2009-07-23T16:04:00.001-05:00

These pictures show the spot where Joe proposed to me three years ago.

More pictures in the park!

2009-07-23T15:15:00.008-05:00

Here are some of my favorties that we took that day!

Pictures in the Park!

2009-07-23T15:04:00.005-05:00

My sweet friend took these pictures of us at Big Spring Park.
Thanks Becki!

Vacation Adventures Part Four!

2009-07-20T11:22:00.003-05:00

Two months later and we're finally finishing our vacation blog....
Last full day at the beach and we decided to spend the whole day actually at the beach. Dad bought a canopy to set up at the beach to use for shade, so we decided to set it up and spend the day down at the beach. Setting it up was a lot more troublesome than we thought it would be since it was a cheap kind. We followed the directions putting the poles together, then throwing the roof on top, then trying to erect it. We were doing ok until we tried to raise it up. The wind would start grabbing the top, blowing it causing the poles to come undone. We tried to fix those poles, then the poles on the other side would come undone. When we tried to fix those, the poles in the middle would come undone and the roof would try to blow away. Eventually Joe figured this was a lost cause and gave up and put it away. While putting it away a gentleman from Missouri walked up and thanked us for his entertainment. He said he was watching us to see how far we would go before giving up. He said the day before, his brother's family had tried to put the same kind of canopy together but didn't give up so soon. Eventually they got it together, then a big wind gusted and sent the canopy tumbling down the beach. He said we made the smart move by giving up early. This gentleman then offered us the use of one of his spare beach umbrellas and he set it up in front of the ocean. How nice of him. It's good to know that there are still nice people in the world.
It was a nice day. Joe brought down the inflatable raft and floated in the surf. Amber tried to read her book on the beach, but kept getting distracted because she thought Joe was going out too far. Which he thinks he wasn't. It was really fun. Maybe next year Amber will go out on the raft with him. The rest of the day we just relaxed at the beach, at the pool, and the hot tub. We enjoyed a nice seafood dinner at a restaraunt with mom and dad.
Last day... the trip home. We came home the scenic way, taking the ferry across Mobile Bay to Dauphin Island. While we were waiting for our ferry, we toured Fort Morgan at the very tip of the penninsula. It was considerably smaller than Fort Pickens but had the same combination of Civil War and WWII technologies. Pretty much a miniture version of Fort Pickens. The ferry was fun, a good experience for Amber who had never been on a ferry before. We got to see all the oil and gas rigs in the bay as we passed them. And we watched the seagulls and pelicans as they fished in the ferry wake. Before we knew it we had arrived at Dauphin Island. We drove around the tip of the island and saw Fort Gaines and the Dauphin Island sea lab. Joe went there when he was in sixth grade with his school class. Ahh memories...
Driving back home we once again went off the beaten path and drove through Alabama's blackbelt area. We went to Old Cahawba, site of Alabama's first capital and now a ghost town. Of course we got there right as they closed, so we couldn't see a couple of the more interesting ruins since they were behind padlock barbed-wire topped fences. Holy cow! Why do they need such security for a few pieces of old stone? I guess it's a testament to the area and the crime rates. Nearly out of gas, we stopped a passerby to ask him the quickest way to Selma, and he gave us directions in exchange for a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet. Too bad we didn't have a Book of Mormon to give him at the time.
Driving through Selma was interesting... we kept our doors locked the whole time. We found the historic bridge where a famous civil rights march took place and took a picture of it, then ran back to the car and locked the doors behind us. Hate to sound like a racist, but we felt like we were in the ghetto the whole time. We got gas and got out of there and headed home. It was a nice scenic drive, driving along the back-road highways. We hit the interstate just south of Birmingham, ate yummy Cracker Barrel for dinner and came home. Can't wait to go back to the beach again next year!

Vacation Adventures Part Three!

2009-07-04T18:50:00.009-05:00

Oysters....mmmm, what a lovely way to start the day. We had to make sure we got our fill of oysters on this trip. That was half the reason for coming. We went over to Pensacola today to see Fort Pickens. All through this trip Amber has been learning her Civil War history. There is tons of Civil War and World War II history all along the Gulf Coast. Joe had been to Fort Pickens once before as a Boy Scout. There are a number of forts guarding the bays along the Gulf Coast and Fort Pickens is the biggest and most interesting of all. On the way there, just past the Fort Pickens park entrance it was strange to see that alot of the beach parking lots off the road were submerged under water and sand. We were trying to think if there had been any storms lately to cause the road to flood. Also the campgrounds and the stores were closed and boarded up, how strange.
We got to the fort and noticed that there was a diesel generator outside the visitor center. We toured the fort, and learned about the battle of Pensacola Bay, that never was. This fort is interesting in part because it was built for the Civil War, then used again in World War II, so it was a mixture 1800's and 1900's technology. It was also interesting to see that part of the fort had been blown up and was missing due to a fire that got to the powder rooms. Oops! I'd hate to be the one responsible for that mistake. Walking around the fort got us really hot and Amber was ready to go, while Joe wanted to explore more. So I guess it was time to go. We bought a couple souveniers and found out that the fort had just opened a week before. It had been closed since Hurricane Ivan hit..... 5 years ago. Wow, guess that explains the submerged roads and closed up stores on the way here. They didn't even have water and electricity yet, which is why they had a diesel generator powering the gift shop. What timing! It's a good thing we came this week instead of last week.
On the way back to the condo, right before crossing the forever long bridge over Pensacola Bay, Amber started screaming because a spider decided to drop down from the rear view mirror to say hi. Of course he had to make himself known right as we started crossing the bay. We couldn't find him, hopefully he enjoyed the ride. We haven't been down here since the hurricanes, so a couple of things were different since the last time we were here. The biggest thing we noticed was that the old Pensacola Bay bridge next to the current bridge that used to be open as a fishing pier was now in pieces and was creepy to watch as we drove alongside it. There were sections of the bridge that were intact, but there was a majority of the bridge that looked like the sections had been picked up and dropped like lego blocks. We guess that happened when the storm surge came into Pensacola and made the water rise really fast, picking up sections of the bridge with it.
We got back to the condo and there was a beautiful sunset on the horizon. We couldn't miss this moment so we ran out to the beach where we could get a good view of the sunset so we could take pictures of it. After taking the pictures, Joe noticed how beautiful Amber was in the light of the sunset. So he had to get some pictures of her of course. Much to Amber's surprise Joe got into a romantic mood. We decided to go for a little walk on the beach to the dunes away from people, and did some kissie kissie smoochie smoochie on the beach in the light of the sunset. Yep Joe can be romantic sometimes.
On our trip, we promised Amber's little cousin, Brianna, that we would find some cute little sea creatures and take a picture for her. We went crab hunting after the sun went down. We've never looked for crabs at the beach before, but we see people doing it all the time with their flashlights, buckets and nets, and figured how hard could it be? At first we didn't know where to look for them. Do we dig holes? Are they down by the water? Or are they up closer to the dunes? We went down and walked along the shore sweeping with our flashlight looking for any signs of life. For the first few minutes nothing, but as we walked further down the shore, we started to see white things sitting still, and as we got closer to them they ran really fast into the surf. And as we walked, we saw more and more of these. They were crabs!!! After seeing these over and over again we started getting creeped out because we didn't realize the crabs were out in plain sight. Never again will we walk along the shore at night without a flashlight.
Trying to catch them was interesting, they're so fast. Even if you try to sneak up on one, they can still see you and they run into the surf or they disappear altogether. That got us really baffled. Eventually, we were able to catch a couple of little ones and figured out what they were doing. They were hiding in footprints where they think they're safe, even if you're hovering right over them. Another reason that we're not going to walk on the beach at night without a flashlight anymore. It was fun catching the big ones as long as we kept them in our sights and blocked them from going into the surf. We just followed them until they hid in a footprint, then captured them with a net, trying not to get pinched. We bought them inside to take pictures. Of course Joe thought he was smart and tried to pick one of the big ones up. He thought if he picked them up by the body from behind they wouldn't be able to pinch him. That wasn't the case. Man, those little things are strong! He could reach all the way back behind him and pinched Joe's finger. It didn't hurt until he found the cuticle and pinched the crap out of it. Ouch, scream, back into the bucket! We were finally able to take pictures of them by dumping him into the sink. Poor thing was scared to death. He was kinda cute in a crab sorta way. We took them back to the beach and let them go.

Vacation Adventures '09, Part Two!

2009-06-13T20:07:00.010-05:00

For the first part of our trip, we decided to visit some of Joe's family since a couple of his family members might not be with us for too much longer. This day we were spending in Tallahassee with Joe's relatives on his father's side. We haven't been all that close to some of them before, but we all mutually felt that it was time to get over past issues and get closer as a family.
Joe and his parents got some songs together to play (clarinet, piano and bass) for granddad at the assisted living center. It was kind of a pain to carry the bass and the amp all the way down there, but it worked out well. Joe's granddad loved jazz music and was a music professor at FSU, so we figured this would be a good way to connect with him. After playing, visiting and spending the day with family we came back to Marianna and had a Memorial Day dinner at a Chinese resturant with Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Bill.
The next day was a wet one. This was the day to head over to the beach. Yay!!

After sleeping in we started the day with loud thunder and lightning as our companion, and the rain was drenching. We had planned to hit Flordia Caverns before going over to the beach but the rain and the anticipation of walking on the muddy trails deterred from doing so. Looking over the map and seeing the next town we would be going through, Joe recalled that there is a very interesting natural attraction.... Falling Waters State Park, a waterfall falling into a big sinkhole. Joe had been there once before with a friend and thought it would be good to take Amber. It wasn't even too far off the interstate.

It was actually pretty cool, there were boardwalks going around a series of sinkholes in the forest and one of them, the one with the water falling into it actually had a cave at the bottom where the water drains into. This sinkhole had walls of sheer stone and it was as if someone had taken a cookie-cutter to the stone. We took some picutures to help illustrate :) If you ever find yourself in the Chipley, FL area of I-10 with a half-hour of extra time, this would be worth it.
Back on the open road, through some fun, blinding thunderheads, and two hours later we're making our way through the ten-thousand little towns toward Gulf Shores. The condo was great. We even got some nice enterainment by a little bunny rabbit and several little bitty lizards as we boiled in the hot tub! We ate dinner that night at a local oyster house. Amber, before meeting Joe, hated fish and all types of seafood even though her last name was Fish, guess it must be a cannibal thing ;) When she became a Glotzbach, Joe began the process of trying to break that hatred of seafood... heck, how can you live in the South and not like seafood? The first time Joe introduced her to oysters she was scared to death. But it was actually a very positive experience. Now, whenever we go to the beach, we have to have oysters at least twice on our visit. That night it was good to sleep on a nice king sized bed again.
The next day was obvious... we spent it at the beach! Amber has always been afraid to go into the ocean, especially after getting stung by a jellyfish last year. And of course that had to be the first time she had ever ventured out into the ocean, Utah... what's an ocean? (Amber: I know what an ocean is. Joe: I've seen China on the map before).

The water was really pretty and clear this year, Joe was even able to talk Amber into coming out into the water. The beach is great. The waves are so much fun to wade in, especially if you get to the point just beyond the breakers when you get a nice ride going up and back down again with each wave. The sandbar wasn't too far here. We made it to the sandbar and continued enjoying ourselves until Amber looked into the water, pointed, and said what's that? It was a huge jellyfish of course. Okay, back to shore!
Beautiful sunset that night at the beach. Dan, the local weather expert here had predicted storms at the beach all week long. So we were prepared to have to stay on our balcony all week. Luckily, Dan was wrong. After driving though the storms on the way to the beach we didn't see a drop of rain the rest of the week. We took advantage of the sunset and took pictures of us at the beach at sunset. We found a nice lady who just finished having their family pictures taken, to take our picture for us. We think it turned out pretty good!

Vacation Adventures '09, part one!

2009-05-31T18:39:00.005-05:00

Summertime has finally arrived! So we packed up, loaded the car, and headed out for some long overdue vacation. We have been looking forward to this for a long time now, although we've had to change the date a few times because of work complications. We were finally able to settle on a date that would be a good time to go.
Since Joe has been working so hard at work the last few months and working such long hours, the upper management was able to work out a deal with one of the station's clients on the Gulf coast to get Joe a $500 gift certificate to a nice condo in Gulf Shores. Joe took a week off and we headed down to the beach to relax.
On big car trips like these, we like to do a little extra exploring and see some of the local sites. On the trip down we decided to go a little different route and see Alabama's longest covered bridge that is still in use. It is always nice to go a different way and see different scenery, and all the little towns that you never know about unless you go off the beaten path. You also never know what will be around the next bend.
We have a nice map of Alabama that has all the little roads and topography of the land. It also has local tourist destinations, which is how we found out about this covered bridge, the Swann Bridge. As detailed as this map is, however, we've discovered that they are inaccuracies and usually these inaccuracies make themselves known to us at the most inopportune times. Luckily we were able to find the bridge without any trouble... it was a pretty neat bridge. We were wondering if there was going to be a newer bridge beside it, since the road has to cross the river but there wasn't. When we got down to the bridge and saw how far down the river was and how long the bridge was we were scared to cross it. Instantly, the covered bridge scene from the movie "The Funny Farm" came to mind. The part when the moving people had to cross the covered bridge and it collasped on them because of the weight.
We cautiously proceeded onto the bridge as we rolled our windows down so we could listen to any sounds of wood stress. At first we moved slowly and we could hear the boards clunk and shift below us and every now and then we could see cracks of light peering though the baseboards. When we got halfway across the bridge we could see out the windows and we realized how high we were up. And we could see the water below of the Mulberry River. It was at this moment where are heartbeats got faster and we decided it was time to get off the bridge, so we floored it! Shifting wood, bumping swells of an uneven surface..... it was good to see daylight again.
We parked on the other side and got out and looked around. It had been storming on the trip down but the weather had cleared up and it was nice outside now. We could see people down the river starting a float trip with rafts and kayaks, and made Joe long for his days of canoeing.
Much to Amber's protest, we walked down the sandy, dirty road to the edge of the river. Well can you blame her? We had flip flops on. The river was beautiful. It was shallow but wide and had the occasionally class I and II rapids. Joe wanted to go down it so bad, but we will have to save that for another trip. As we were going back up to the car, Amber, who was extra cautious to not get her feet dirty just happened to be the one of us to find the soft, muddy spot in the road. She got her foot all muddy. After washing her feet off in the river we were on our way. We continued our journey as the map directed us to until we found ourselves on a dirt road going up this mountain. We double-checked the map and confirmed that we were supposed to go over a mountain, but when the road turned into two wheel-wells and stopped at a pile of deadfallen trees and overgrowth, we knew the map had faliled us.
We found sometime outside trapping who we could ask for directions to the road we were looking for. We somehow got way off. We found our road and got back on track and things were going smoothly until we crossed the river where we shouldn't have. And we realized that the map had failed us again. Oh, to have a GPS device right now. We backed up and went down another road and found an old lady to ask directions from, and ended up going the wrong direction.
We finally were able to figure out where we were, and found the interstate,where we floored it to Flordia. You say Florida? Not Gulf Shores? Yep. The first part of our trip we decided to go to Florida to see Joe's relatives, while some of them are still alive. We didn't realize when we left this morning, that dinner was being served at 5:00 in Marianna. We were truckin' the whole way down, but were still an hour and a half late for dinner. None the less dinner was yummy, a southern vegetable feast with a side of roast beef. This is one thing that Joe always loves about going to Marianna... eating Aunt Bernice's delicious southern vegetables. Unfortunately (Great) Aunt Bernice isn't doing very well right now, but her niece Bobby's cooking was still yummy.

We saw a cute little bitty froggy on the ground while we were there, a little bitty green toad. It was so cute. We picked him up and held him and then let him go. We slept for the night at Aunt Cheryl's place

Night out at the space dome!

2009-05-06T14:05:00.003-05:00

By the grace of WHNT NEWS 19 (got to love being married to the graphic artist, police deputy of the station brand), we were able to spend Tuesday evening at the space and rocket center space dome theater watching the Huntsville premier of the new Star Trek movie. This was my first visit to the space dome. Joe tried to explain what it would be like, but this was something that I had to experience to really get a grasp for. Its a really cool place.
The movie screen really is a big dome that surrounds you. Unfortunately we walked in just before the movie started, so our seats were close to the bottom. We spent the whole evening looking stright up to where the action was happening. For a movie that is designed for a hortizontial widescreen theater, watching it projected onto an IMAX concave screen is quite the different experience. Alot of times the movie was so action-packed that it was hard to tell what was going on, since it was so big. Almost like taking a picture on a computer screen and zooming into a section. When you're zoomed in so close its hard to tell what is going on.
It was a great movie, we will have to go and see it again at a regular theater in a couple of weeks, after all the hype dies down some.
About two-thirds of the way through it was a little too much for my body to handle and I had to look away to avoid getting motion sickness.
I guess the overall lesson to be learned here is if you go see a movie at the space dome, make sure you get there early enough to get a good seat at the top... It's probably much better experience from there.

Surprise!

2009-04-21T17:51:00.005-05:00

These beautiful flowers were a suprise to me on Monday night, from my sweet and loveable husband!!! He has been working really late the past couple of weeks at the t.v. station and he promised to make it up to me. He told me that this was just the start of his making up the long hours to me. I was really suprised. I'm looking forward to more suprises from the love of my love. I love you Joe!!! Thanks for being my wonderful husband!!!

Sunday Evening Fish Fry

2009-04-05T19:19:00.003-05:00

Amber has gotten us on this new diet recently to help her get pregnant. (and she thinks she needs to lose weight too, but I think she looks great as is) The other week we were going through recipes and meals in her diet book and planning our dinners. We came across a suggestion to have baked trout. Me being a fish loving person, I got all excited. Amber didn't share the enthusiasm. Even though her maiden name is Fish, she's never really been too keen on the idea of fish for a main meal. In fact, she'll probably tell you that she hates fish. But in the spirit of this new diet, she reluctantly gave in. When we picked up the fish in the store, each time I mentioned it she would give me a look of discust, so I mentioned it more and more just to get a reaction out of her. We cooked the fish, and it turned out pretty good, and I even think she liked it even though she wouldn't admit it.
Yesterday we made Louisiana gumbo and had some left over catfish so we (I) decided to have a fish fry with the leftover catfish and trout. It was great! I even heard Amber say she liked the trout, but not the catfish so much...we'll keep working on that one. It was funny watching her expressions as she was watching me pull the fish off the bones for her, and eating my fish directly off the skeleton (do I hear a unanimous yuck from all the ladies reading this) Mmmmmm....fish!

My Adventures in Crochet Land!

2009-03-30T15:46:00.004-05:00

So I have decided to re-learn how to crochet again. When I was younger my mom taught me how to crochet, I crochet some blankets, but that was all. Since I'm home most afternoons by myself and get bored I decided to do a craft so I picked crocheting. I went to Wal-mart and bought a book called I taught myself how to crochet. So I read though it and started making a scarf, then I moved on to cell phone pocket, then I made joe a hat. Also made some baby booties. I have really had lots of fun crocheting and look forward to making many more things..... I"m in the process of making me a snowman applique. Here are some pictures of the items that I crochet. If anyone whats to get together to crochet, let me know.

Our Wedding Trip

2009-03-29T13:36:00.006-05:00

Here are some pictures of when we got married and our trip from Utah to Huntsville AL.

Letter J

2009-03-20T15:43:00.003-05:00

So my friend Akane tagged me on 10 things I like/love that begin with the letter J.

Here is what I came up with.....

1. Joe

2. Joan (mother in law)

3. Justin (my brother)

4. June

5. Jane Austen

6. Jade (one of my favorite colors)

7. Jelly Beans ( the Jelly Belly kind)

8. Jeans

9. Jewelry

10. Jam (strawberry)

I tag Becki with letter E, Talene with letter M, Melissa with letter K, Mary Jones with letter O.

2009-03-03T14:14:00.004-06:00

The pictures in the slideshow are from when me and Joe first met.

A little Alabama snowstorm!

2009-03-01T16:49:00.003-06:00

We woke up this morning to a white backyard and large snowflakes falling. The weather guys predicted snow, but its Alabama... it doesn't snow here. Sure enough it snowed. We turned the t.v on to the news and watching for them to announce that the roads were closed and church had been cancelled, but no such luck. Usually when it snows here they close the whole city down. So it was strange to be able to drive on the interstate overpassess covered with snow. It was fun. Heavenly Father gave us some variety for a Sunday morning. We took a couple of picutures just because snow in Alabama only happens once every other blue moon. Joe tried to make a snowman, but he couldn't do much since most of the snow had melted by the time we got out of church.

Ooey gooey plastic!

2009-02-22T17:17:00.004-06:00

Today after dinner I was putting away the dishes. I could smell this funny odor and couldn't figure what it was. When I went to the stove to get the purple bowl I was in for a shock, it was stuck to the stove. In my hurry to get dinner on the table before Joe had to go to the church for the priesthood meeting I forgot to turn the burner off on the stove not thinking when I placed the bowl down on the hot burner. As you can see in the picture what it did to my bowl.

Valentine's Day 2009 - Our Wedding Anniversay!

2009-02-16T12:30:00.006-06:00

February 14, 3 years and counting! Its hard to believe that three years ago we were married. My, how time has flown by. Of course today being Valentine's Day and our anniversary, special surprises were in order. Amber surprised Joe with yummy breakfast in bed. (Last year it was the other way around). Since we were flat broke... a lifestyle that we have gotten accustom to, the surprises had to come straight from the heart and hand-made. After our yummy breakfast, Joe surprised Amber with a digtally restored and composited wedding picture of the two of us in front of the Salt Lake Temple, where we got married. We had pictures, but since we didn't have a professional photographer, we didn't really have a great picture of us in front of the temple. There were a bunch of "ok" pictures of us and of the temple. Joes talent in profession of graphic artist and photo restoration and compositing skills come in handy in times like these. The picture looks great. Amber almost cried.

We spent the day relaxing and enjoying each others company, and making home-made lemon meringue pie... after a couple of quick trips to the grocery store. We had some pie the other night at Big Bob Gibsons BBQ and had the best lemon pie. It made us hungry for more. We capped off the day with dinner at Terranova's Italian restaurant. It was really good, especally the bread and the herb mix. We have to figure out what herbs they use so we can make our own. Here's to another year!

Waterfalls, skeeters, bats and owls!

2009-02-08T14:52:00.002-06:00

We decided to take off for a Saturday and do some hiking/exploring. We packed up the car and headed to the Sipsey Wilderness. Joe used to go there all the time with his best friend before we got married, exploring and getting lost all the time. Hence the reason that Amber is apprenhensive about going! Well today he talked her into it.
We decided to hike down the old Arnold Motorway to upper Quillan Creek, a very beautiful area. Hiking to it along the ridgetop and down the rim in the winter actually pretty ugly and sometimes challenging because of all the dead and fallen pine trees everwhere, thanks to the southern pine beetle and many numerous storms. But getting to it is half the fun, right?
After hiking a bit along the top, the road went down and eventually headed toward a wall of evergreens. It is amazing how much of a difference there is between the dreary forest and the jewel of the creek hidden in the evergreen trees. Mountain laurels, firs and mountain holly surrounded and encapsulated the realms of the beautiful Quillan Creek. The Sipsey Wilderness is famous for this phenomenon, and this is what brings us back there everytime.
We explored along the bank of the creek, listening to the peaceful sounds of the gentle water flow and enjoying the quiet serenity of the creek flowing through the canyon of moss covered boulders and a catherdral of evergreens.
We had to cross the creek a couple of times and get our feet wet, but this day, even though its winter, was unseasonably warm, so the coolness of the water was somewhat welcoming. All in all we saw a few sets of rocky cascades and a waterfall that made the hike that much more worth it. We could have gone further, but the day was getting dark and we didn't feel like getting lost in the middle of the woods at night this time, much to Amber's relief. Although we almost got lost when we started hiking up the wrong ridge, but luckily Joe realized before we got to far. Along our trek alongside the creek we saw cute little skeeters bugs scooting along the top of the water. We tried to find turtles but I guess they are all hybernating right now. We headed back up the ancient highway back to our car.
Driving through the forest on the gravel road, we saw several bats flying around, and a couple almost flew into the car. We had to make sure that our windows were rolled up! After getting onto a paved road we headed towards the highway but saw the most unusual site, at least for us, we saw this huge bird swoop down from a tree and then back up into the tree and landed in the branch. At first we thought it was a hawk, but realized after it landed that it had a big round head, the head of a Great Horned Owl. The first owl that we have ever seen in real life, awesome! Its too bad we didn't have a camera with us today, but it would have been too dark anyway to take a picture of the owl. Next time we will definitely bring one with us. We headed to Decatur and had yummy bbq for dinner at Big Bob's.

Ready or not Cyberspace...here we come!

2009-02-08T14:21:00.000-06:00

Well here we are, we finally decided to start a blog.
So the past three years have been fun. You say, what happened three years ago? Thats when Joe and Amber decided to get married. This whole life of bliss started with a cold day in February at the Salt Lake Temple, February 14th to be exact. Yup, a Valentine's Day wedding! Of course you can imagine driving all the way home to Alabama across the plains in the middle of winter was a fun experience.
Fast forward three years later, and we are sitting on the front porch of our house just east of Huntsville. Still just the two of us, but hopefully that will change soon :)
Joe is working as the head graphic designer at WHNT Channel 19, going on 10 years now. Amber is working as daycare teacher at Madison County Elementary, while still trying to get her degree... stupid Praxis test!
So we decided to start this blog, to keep everybody updated on our adventures in this life... blogging seems a little more personal then facebook!