Trail of Cedars

Green Rocks White Noise, a photo by BaubCat on Flickr.

This lovely photo was taken on the "Trail of Cedars" in Glacier National Park. It was a lush and beautiful trail, one of the greenest spots in the park and sort of damp. And the great part is that it is handicap accessible, so every visitor can enjoy it. There was a small bridge across this beautiful little gorge and you could continue off the path and walk along side it. As usual I climbed right to the edge to peer over, that always freaks out my hubby.

travel date sept. 2004

Mushrooms of the Great Smokey Mountains

Untitled, a photo by BaubCat on Flickr.

I never knew there were so many varieties of wild mushrooms until I started doing a lot of hiking. Everywhere we go, we see unusual ones. Here is one of the lovely ones we saw in the Great Smokey Mountains on our foggy Blue Ridge Parkway trip (guess the trip did have a few highlights). Click thru on the picture and you can see the whole set of mushroom photos from Bob's flickrstream.

travel date Sept. 2009

Blue Ridge Parkway Blues

Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway a video by b-a-boop on Flickr.

A few summers ago we planned a camping trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Both of us had been on the Blue Ridge when we were kids, but we hadn’t been together or even been close to it on several other trips along the east coast. It has a reputation for gorgeous mountain & valley views, waterfalls, caves, etc. and we were looking forward to driving over the Linn Cove Viaduct.
Well the trip didn’t pan out as expected. It was rainy & foggy the whole time we were there. Driving was hell as you could barely see a few fee in front of the car, much less any of the spectacular views we’d been hoping for. At times we passed not only motorcycles, but bicycles too (don’t know why they were out there in such danger). We pitched a tent the 1st night, but the weather was bad so we drove off the parkway into a nearby town for dinner & to get Bob a sweatshirt. The next morning we visited a few overlooks, got in a few hikes and saw some nice waterfalls in the Lineville Falls area. But as we proceeded north to the next campground, the fog got thicker & thicker. The campground was so wet, we decided to keep heading north & see if things improved. They didn’t, the site distance got so bad that as we approached the Viaduct, I was too scared to drive any further, not that we be seeing anything anyway. We headed back south, but my nerves we so testy by then that I picked a fight with my hubby about the wet campgrounds and he got really annoyed with me, so we ended up cutting the trip short. I hope next time we go we get nice weather.

travel date Sept. 2009