April 17, 2012 - Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Business Trip Part 1

The next few entries will deviate somewhat from the norm, being less about what we did and more what I did. This is a rare occasion where I traveled without Esther and the kids. 

Recently I've been fortunate enough to have my work assignments shuffled around and to be placed with a different project and customer. As a result, I was asked to travel with two other co-workers to visit and tour our customer's facility and operations in Erie, Pennsylvania. This was an awesome opportunity for me and I'm very grateful for the chance to re-visit the state and to connect with our business partners on their home turf.

And, yeah, they build trains. Trains. All day, every day. Like about 900 a year. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Also- flying. I love flying. I fly just often enough to know the routines of modern air travel, but not so frequently that I've become bored with it. I still spend most of my time in the air looking outside the window. I watch the runway speed by and the ground fall away and land with a crick in my neck from cloud gazing in-route. Little surprise that most the pictures I took today were of the flight.

We left Huntsville morning under cloudy skies aboard a 50-passenger Canadair CRJ900 which is more like a school bus with wings than an airliner. This would be the first of four such flights before our trip was over as we were connecting in Detroit for a jump to Erie.

Sky: Cloudy. Window: scratchy.

As you can see from the pictures, my window had seen better days. Time in the air was just under the duration of a Doctor Who episode. The strangest thing during this leg of the trip was hearing the co-pilot introduced by his first name only, "Adam".

We paused at Detroit Metro just long enough to grab a drink and a sandwich (nearly $10). DTW will always be known to me as "that airport with a mile of people movers and no free WiFi".

Behind Cathy and Bill on the people mover between gates.

Back aboard waiting to taxi.

The window in the second plane was much clearer. This was my second trip with a connection in Detroit and my second time to fly out and over Lake Erie. The lake does not disappoint. It's more like flying out over the Gulf of Mexico than over what we call lakes in Alabama. 

One thing that I wasn't able to get a picture of was the red-tailed hawk perched on a light beacon between the lanes of taxing planes, her feathers fluttering in the wind from the lake.

 

We also saw windmills as we approached Erie. Sadly we had already been asked to put away "all personal electronic devices" before flying in and over Presque Isle State Park. That was beautiful.

What followed was the boring details of picking up the rental car, checking into the hotel, trying out the WiFi, logging on to our company email and general settling in to our temporary homes. We met up with a fourth employee of our company and had diner at the Quaker Stake and Lube across the highway from the hotel. I had the boneless wings with "Super Charged" hot sauce (only 30,000 SHU!)

Wet naps are provided for your convenience.

More pictures (most from the window of the plane) can be found here.

April 14, 2012 - Return to Richard-Martin

Apparently, 12 miles just wasn't enough so we came back. This time around we started at the north end, just over the border in Tennessee, and walked the whole darn thing. Then we turned around and did it again. The mile markers on the trail itself indicate the length is 10.4 miles. Using Google My Tracks app on my phone I came up with a total trek of 22.8 miles for our "full-and-back" hike. Oddly enough, the mileage that I logged from one end to the other was 12+ miles so I guess we stepped into a wormhole on one of the covered bridges on the way back to the van. Whatever. Call it twenty miles and then some.

I have a whole new level of respect for marathon runners. Of course, I was also carrying my own water, a rain jacket, couple of protein bars, first aid kit, camera, GPS and assorted items...

There were more horses out on the trail today than last week.

We also found another couple of critters, both that I almost walked right on top of because I was looking at something on either the GPS or my phone. The snake is not zoomed in, he let me get right down there in his little snaky face. 

I'm uploading a quick video of the beetle, a rainbow scarab, that will be in the picture gallery (link at the end of this post). In the video you can better appreciate the horn jutting up from the head of this little dude. I've seen dung beetles before, but I don't ever remember seeing one like this. The horses were certainly providing him with plenty of work.

We stopped at the little gas station in Elkmont at the halfway point to grab a cold drink. Note for future travelers- they do not take debit or credit cards of any kind. We took our root beers and drank them at the concrete picnic table around by the red caboose.

Esther's pretty tough, but she had been having sock and shoe issues since the start and by around mile 18 she declared that she was done with the hike.

She continued on but around mile 20.5, with the sun setting and the trail getting ever darker, she gave me the go-ahead to speed past her and get to the van first. I power-walked the remainder of the trail and hopped in the van to get her. I picked her up with only a half mile left to go.

Tired and sore, we rewarded ourselves with burritos at Moe's and a mini-Blizzard at Dairy Queen.

Tracklog of the hike.

Gallery of pictures.

April 8, 2012 - Richard-Martin Trail

Sunday we walked so far we found ourselves in a whole other state!

On a day that could have easily been spent hanging out at home and generally taking it easy, Esther and I set out to explore the north half of the Richard-Martin Trail, part of the Rails to Trails Conservancy. It starts about five miles south of Elkmont, Alabama and runs another six miles past that, all the way to the Tennessee border. Here's a route on Google Maps of the entire trail. We hiked the south end with our friends about this time last year but hadn't been back since.

Esther at the trail head

The trail is just about everything you could ask for in relaxed walking this time of year. The majority of the path is in the shade most of the day, the slope is easy-going and unnoticeable. On Sunday the weather was nice enough to provide a breeze to keep us cooled off.

Only about a mile down the trail and we spotted a little bit of what hikers on much longer treks call "trail magic". It was the right day for it, but we never really seriously expected to find this on the side of the walkway...

We wold later pass the grandmother and two grand-daughters connected to the eggs, but for a few moments it was really just for us.

New wildflowers are up every day now. Some, like the very early-season Black-eyed Susan below, are a little out of place this time of year.

We had the pathway to ourselves for most of the day but at a few points we did share it with other feet and a few hooves.

Multiple bridges are spread across the length of the trail as well as few other distractions on the way.

The track log of our trip can be found here with a few points of interest along the way (avoid the covered bench it's got carpenter bees!)

Total mileage: 12.1 miles

Total time: 4 hours, 38 minutes

More pictures can be found here, including Esther with antennae looking like some sort of strange, we-are-not-ammused queen bee.

April 7, 2012 - Cherokee Rock Village

On our way home we made a stop with one of our buddy-families to scamper on the boulders at Cherokee Rock Village, a haven for rock climbers and other folks, like us, that just like to get out and explore the winding caverns, nooks and crannies of the outcropping atop Lookout Mountain.

Weiss Lake from the top of the rock

I would have taken more pictures of our kids or us, but I spent most of the time being generally lost or hauling up our little dog that kept trying to pick a fight with all the other, much larger, dogs that were hanging out in the park. All manner of climbers were on-site with ropes and gear going up and down the rock faces. It was a gorgeous day, but man, the pollen count has been crazy this week and Esther and I both were just kind of unnaturally worn out.

Cherokee Rock Village can be found right here on the map (showing as "Little Rock"). Enjoy this currently free place as long as you can. It appears that there are plans to start charging $5 a person in the near future. While we were there it was apparent that construction work was being done to clean the place up a bit and organize the parking situation. We all hope that some sort of on-site camping is established, but information on the web is sparse. Esther found this one article here.

A few more pictures can be seen here.

April 6, 2012 - Buck's Pocket, Guntersville, Al

Buck's Pocket is an Alabama State Park located in Guntersville. From the website and information on-site:

As local legend goes, Buck's Pocket was where all the defeated public officials went to lick their wounds after an unsuccessful election. Whether or not this is true, this park is certainly the place to get some rest & relaxation.

Three other families and our own joined together on Friday to hang out by the fire, grill some burgers and dogs, walk out to the overlook and then spend the night in our various means of camperage. 

While the adults sat around and talked the kids all huddled together for a game of Munchkin near the playground.

Towards the end of the afternoon we took a few group pictures at the overlook.

The Whole Group!

View off the overlook, into the sun

The more daring group shot

The cliff-climbing women-folk

The food was great and the company of our friends was warm and welcoming. A minimal amount of sword fighting broke out, but nobody was seriously injured. The night was cold in the hollow of the pocket but we were all comfortable in varying degrees of snug.

A few more pictures can be found here.

April 1, 2012 - Virgin Falls and The Minister's Tree House

We awoke early and absquatulated our gear in time to hit the trail shortly after 8 AM. Our destinations were two waterfalls, Big Laurel and Virgin Falls both in Scott's Gulf.

This trail is known across the country for the falls and for the difficulty of the hike. It's not impossible, but it's no stroll through the park either. This is probably the second hardest hike we've ever done with the kids. Good shoes are a must. Plenty of water is vital. But don't my word for it:

Broken leg? I'll just call... oh, right.

The top of the trail winds through a small laurel hell and the first mile of the hike is really mild and gradually slopes down.

Then around 1.25 miles in things get a little more... vertical. The elevation drops by about 600 feet in the next to the 2.5 mile mark where Big Laurel Falls is located.

There is a huge shelter cave behind Laurel Falls. The water actually reverses direction at the bottom of the falls, swirls around the perimeter of the cave and then at the back gets sucked into a hole!

On the way down we had to move off the trail to let a troop of 68 scouts pass. One of the scouts left a nifty bamboo frog gig that Jake picked up and carried around the rest of the hike.

After taking a break to grab a snack and water-up we continued down the trail. The path was covered with wildflowers on both sides nearly the entire trek.

Giant Chickweed

Bearded Dwarf Iris

Fire Pink

After descending another 200 or so feet (and then climbing back up 100) we arrived at Virgin Falls near the 4.8 mile mark. This is easily one of the most amazing waterfalls we've ever seen. Water flows from a cave about 150 feet then plummets 110 feet to the bottom of the falls were it vanishes into a pit. We were very fortunate to see the falls after a couple of days of decent rainfall.

We paused to eat and drink again while enjoying the misty breeze from the falls. Sadly, we did not venture up and around to the source cave at the top of the falls this trip. Nor did we visit Sheep Cave or the Overlook trail. I'm pretty sure that we'll be making a return trip, possibly involving staying the night right off the trail.

Little dog was tired after hiking almost five miles on her own four feet so Esther gave her a ride for a little while.

Total distance: 10.2 miles

Total time: 6 hours, 51 minutes

Tracklog in Google Maps.

 The best part was that the day wasn't over yet. We then traveled just north of Crossville, Tennessee to what most know as "The Minister's Tree house". The story goes that a local preacher was directed by God to build the tree house. The full story can be found at this article on Roadside America. I don't know if it was divine inspiration, but the tree house is like nothing I've ever seen this side of an M C Escher painting. It's just nearly indescribable. The closest thing I've seen to it is the giant playground at the Nashville Zoo and that doesn't even come close. Just start typing "giant tree house" into Google and watch the auto-complete add "Crossville, TN" at the end. 

 

Walking through the tree house was like teetering on the precipice of order overlooking a vortex of chaos. Time and space get all wonky. Not all the ceiling heights on all the floors are consistent and sometimes you don't arrive at where you thought you were going. It's like the TARDIS of tree houses but turned inside out and twisted back in on itself. It felt amazingly sturdy, with one possible exception being the very top of the bell tower that swayed ever so slightly in the breeze. The constant movement of large sections of metal pipe, the church bells, were a strong visual reminder of this.

The Minister's Tree House can be found here. Just a couple of turns off I-40, turn left where Cook Road comes to a stop and keep going. The road narrows to a single lane and there about a hundred people there (more or less, it was really hard to tell as you could hide a thousand in the tree house) so be ready to pull over and let folk through.

Side note- there is a geocache (by the same name) located near the tree house, but we could not find it during our visit.

On our way home we made a final stop to claim a find on a special type of geocache called a Webcam Cache. Geocaching.com isn't currently accepting new listings for these types of caches (just as with Virtuals) and they are fairly hard to find compared to other types. The basic idea is that you visit a webcam and capture your picture to prove you were there. Here's the picture of Chan and me for our find on "Sparta Tennessee Webcam".

All the pictures from our April Fool's Day adventures (many more than I posted in this entry) can be found RIGHT HERE.