HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BLAINE’S SISTER-IN-LAW (meaning she’s married to Blaine’s brother), BARB!!
Even though it was still overcast, we set out for the Stone Mountain Summit Loop Trail. It’s supposed to be a 4.5 mile strenuous hike (plus the ½ mile to and from the trail head from our campsite, plus a couple of spur trails). The weather was still damp. It was cloudy. But the only rain in the forecast was a 20% chance. Blaine, ever the Boy Scout, went prepared. He took his raincoat. I said, “I’m not wearing that. It’s too hot and since I’m already carrying lunch (in a waist pack), I don’t want that thing tied around my waist for hours.” He offered to put it in his pack and I said, “Fine. If you wanna carry it.”
Guess what? About halfway through our hike, it started raining . . .
The rain lasted about 15-20 minutes. We would have been drenched. Well. I would have been.
I gave him permission to say, “I told you so.”
I’m really glad he was a Boy Scout. (for those of you who don’t know, their motto is – or at least it was – ‘always be prepared’)
We saw some amazing sights and although the pictures won’t do it justice, here’s some from the beginning of our hike!
Recent storm damage
He’s always on his phone now . . .
Actually, I think he was checking the weather. : )
I went exploring. There’s Blaine waving at me. : )
This one’s a panoramic Blaine took
Had we heeded the warning signs, we wouldn’t have seen much. Besides warning of various hazards and storm damage, they also warned of a controlled burn going on.
We ignored them and crawled through the temporary barricade. Part way up, we heard a vehicle noise. Turned out to be two rangers in an ATV-type maintenance vehicle. I called it a glorified golf cart. 😊 Anyway, they were driving right up the trail. We considered hiding behind a tree, but we figured if it was truly dangerous for us to hike, they would have stopped us. They just waved as they drove past.
It felt weird taking their picture, so it’s not very good. : )
We kept going, all the way to the summit and then back down and around The Rock (as they’ve nick-named it).
We thought this was an odd place for the elevation sign, since other areas were higher.
Optical illusion? A view of the Summit for pictures?
Hmmm . . .
That’s me at the tree on the Summit
Skirting the edge as the trail continues
Blaine didn’t write this, but he pointed it out.
Awww….
Our knees protest steps when we’re hiking a long way, so quite often we just walk alongside. : )
O . . Ka-aay . . . ?? : )
Just some pretty leaves
A phone booth!
And a chartreuse car. : )
About ¾ of the way, we came across the Hutchinson Homestead established in 1855. Everything here is re-created, but what a gorgeous location they had! I took pictures of some of the information boards. If you’re interested, you should be able to read them.
FYI – some of the pictures are from later time periods, not just when they settled in 1855. Four generations lived here. Plus, some of the pictures aren’t of the Hutchinson family, just period pictures.
We had to cross over a stream to get to the site
The back of the house. I’m guessing they didn’t have wheelchair accessibility . . .
That’s Stone Mountain
I think she looks really tiny. What do you think?
The back of the house
Can you imagine living like this? I don’t think most Americans today would even know where to begin. Our oldest son could. He’d love it! 😊
We sat on a bench at the barn and ate lunch. What a view!
Lunch with a View!
You’ll want to remember this for a later post. : )
Then Blaine wanted to go check out a sign at the edge of the woods. It was information for rock climbers, but it gave me the exploring bug and I took off, determined to touch The Rock!
View of the barn from the woods in front of the mountain
Here I go!
Isn’t it amazing how this tree is growing right inside this huge rock??
You can see it in the previous picture
I did it!!
Finding my way back
Back on the trail.
This one came out blurry for some reason, but just look how that root curled around into a circle!
Part of the loop was territory we’d passed through yesterday, so this time when we stopped at a really cool waterfall area, we played with our phones for different exposures.
We re-visited the 200’ Stone Mountain Falls today on the way back home. The sun was shining! Well, sort of. And no one was there – at least for a while.
200′ Stone Mountain Falls
We left when others started showing up, after telling them how we ignored all the warning signs. (Rabble Rousers. That’s us!) Then we climbed those broken stairs again. Blaine stopped in the middle to ‘fix them’ (of course!). He bent down some nails that were sticking out to prevent someone from the potential of getting hurt. My very own knight in shining armor! Sigh. . .
And then he just had to take a picture of a giant spider. . .
It ran away before he snapped. Aww. Too bad. . .
We stopped at the parking lot and read about ‘controlled burns’. We’d heard of it, and saw evidence in various spots along the trail, but we didn’t know anything about it. Here’s what their information board says, and also some pictures we took along the trail.
Back home, dinner, abbreviated showers (because we don’t have sewer hook-up here) and a movie.
All together, we hiked about 7 miles today. Whew!
Tuesday, we stayed home once again. More rain. However, Blaine took a walk around the campground with his raincoat on and large umbrella open. Then we gathered up our laptop and ipad and drove to the end of the road – our Office – where I was able to work a bit on the blog, but didn’t publish yet.
It was just a very lazy day.