Rockcastle Narrows and Mill Springs

 September 13, 2019. Most of this day was spent hiking a loop called the Rockcastle Narrows. This is on the Rockcastle River that flows into the Cumberland River. Since it was September, the water was low. But in the spring, the high water is forced through a narrow sandstone gorge creating a world-class kayaking run.

We mostly just enjoyed another day in what seemed like Fantasyland. I couldn't get over the pale sandstone and green opalescent water viewed from the shadows of the trees.

The magic did not dissipate even when you got closer.

Portions of the trail followed along steep rock cliffs.

This was the first day we saw the Sheltowee Trace turtle logo. I was immediately intrigued. Sheltowee means "Big Turtle" and it was the name given to Daniel Boone by the Shawnee Indians.

We found this big rock turtle!

On the way back to the campsite, we visited the Mill Springs Mill which has been restored by the Army Corps of Engineers. This is the world's largest overshot water wheel. That means the water hits the buckets just on the forward side of the top of the wheel. It comes from that squarish sluiceway with the pipe from the stream attached.

I liked that you could see the gears.

We were having an extraordinary time, except that we had gotten into the seed ticks the night before and both of us were covered with bites. I did blog about that in 2019 after I got home. In fact, the number of bites made me sick for a day- I think from the anticoagulant they produce. We did not hike the next day. (But we didn't get any nasty diseases)

In other news: Well, I didn't include yesterday's accomplishments because it took me a long time to do the anniversary post, so I'll sort of list everything today, but you've heard most of it before... like every day. I edited hard- trying to get the in-house project to a good place before my trip. I did shopping and errands, I worked on hike plans. Today, just leave out the shopping and errands and put in writing the other column. The shock cord came to fix my tent, so maybe that will be tomorrow. I'm sort of reaching panic stage.

See Natural Arch and Cliffs

58 Years in the Wayback Machine

 Guess what I was doing 58 years ago today.

The boy on the right carrying the cake is Ron Rickner. I think the boy on the left is Dave Mendoza. The girl? Marie- always there for the important moments of my life since we were 12!

Let me tell you a little bit about the wedding. The year was 1968. The world was changing big time. Young couples were beginning to have non-traditional weddings. We didn't go that far, but we didn't follow all of the constricting "rules."

I was always disappointing my mother, and the wedding was no exception. She was very unhappy with many of our decisions, but I was stubborn, and in many respects Om and I had things our way. The end result was that neither Mom or me was happy with the ceremony.

However, this looks pretty traditional. I mean... I had the white dress (maybe more on that potential fiasco another year), we had bridesmaids in blue dresses and groomsmen in fancy tuxedos. Om's sister Loretta sang "The Love of God." My dad "gave me away."

However, by that point in the afternoon, I'd managed to act "normal" and girlish for as long as I could possibly stand it. Please notice that I am cramming the cake all over Om's face. (I really couldn't help myself... everything was just too serious.)

In retrospect, the actual ceremony means almost nothing to me. I probably should have let Mom plan everything the way she wanted it, and it would have made her happy, and 58 years later, I would not have cared at all.

The crowning "disaster" for Mom's day was that some of the teenagers (yes, Om was already attracting hoardes of teens) set off firecrackers. That part still makes me smile. As I recall, we got back at the instigator by setting off some at his wedding a few years later.

And in keeping with our tradition, we are not celebrating today. We are not even together, not even in the same state, another thing that has almost become traditional. If we'd been able to project how our lifetimes would play out we would have known that finding time for an anniversary in the summer months was going to be nearly impossible. We nearly couldn't fit a wedding into the summer of 1968 as it was. But we did, and here we are.

Well, Om is on a trip south. He was with Loretta just a few days ago. They are only a year apart in age and we are both sorry she lives so far away. (Picture is LORETTA and Om)

We'll celebrate some time when we are both in the same space. Meanwhile... here's to us. Just too stubborn to give up on each other.

See 55 Years

Natural Arch and Cliffs

 September 12, 2019. First we moved our campsite from General Burnside State Park to the Koomer Ridge campsite in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

But in the afternoon, we went to Natural Arch, one of the most easily accessible and thus more visited by tourists. However, we did manage to find a way to make it more of a hike in to see it than just driving into the state park access. I looked for my file of info from that trip, but haven't found it yet, so I can't tell you specific trails we took unless I remember. I do recall a few of them, but not this one.

Anyway, we ended up at Natural Arch (there are many similar names, but this one is a state park). You can see it from an overlook on your way there. I am showing a longer view so you can get a sense of the landscape, in addition to the actual arch.

I'm pretty sure we arrived at the bottom of this arch. But one of the neat things about this one is that you are allowed to both walk under it and on the top.

Here are the steps going up.

It was late afternoon when we got back to the campsite. After dinner we walked the very short Cliffs Trail that goes beside the campground. Just because it was short did not make it less spectacular! I used this for my phone wallpaper for quite a while. Maybe I'll put it back on.

I loved it that not every steep spot was fenced off.

And wherever you are on a high spot there are awesome views.

In other news: I edited hard. I worked on some volunteer stuff that has to get finished. I wrote one of my columns. I'll see what more I can get done yet this evening. Surely a little something else. Yesterday evening I finished figuring out which campgrounds are closest to the daily pickup points so we will know when to move camps.

I'm trying to think where that file and map from this trip might be.

See Princess Falls and Fantasyland

Princess Falls and Fantasyland

 The next day (Sept 11, 2019) we went to Princess Falls. This is a view from above, but you could walk right down to the falls and play in the water. I think we ate lunch there. I may need to work harder at finding my notes from that trip to do a good job on these posts.

Almost every day we went out and did one or two short hikes that added up to something between 7 and 10 miles. I don't remember if this shelf cave had a name, but it was spectacular. So many places on that hike were like a fantasy land. I'm using a picture that has Marie in it so you can get a sense of the scale.

The colors were intense, the transitions were abrupt and unexpected. It just seemed otherworldly. For example, the cave walls are so red. Then the bowl was lined with those rounded, shiny rocks, and the bottom of the depression was pure sand. The light made the greens very bright. This view is looking out from under that shelf.

Also on that day, we saw pink Pinesap Monotropa hypopitys. It's usually white like it's cousin Monotropa uniflora (Ghost or Indian Pipe). I've only seen pink ones twice in my life.

In other news: I worked really consistently all day on things that need to be done. I wish I could say I made more progress. Got to cross one thing off the list. Had a Zoom meeting. Ordered one more thing I need.

See Cumberland

Cumberland

 I've decided I'm going to take the next few days and show you pictures of the trip Marie and I took to Kentucky in September 2019. That was the trip where I discovered the Sheltowee Trace Trail that I'll be hiking in a few weeks. Both my computer and my phone catastrophically failed on that trip, and I did not blog for over two weeks.

But it was one of the most interesting places Marie and I have visited, so I'd like to share some of it with you. We took my partially fixed up trailer and camped in luxury.

First we went to Cumberland River and Falls. The walk along the river was really interesting to me with all the hanging shelf caves.

Most of the waterways there were defined by this pale sandstone- on a nice day it's very picturesque with blue sky and green leaves.

Just upstream from there is the famous Cumberland Falls. It is about the same size as Tahquamenon Falls (so familiar to many of my Michigan friends). They are considered two of the greatest "block waterfalls" in the eastern US.

All of the previous pictures were taken from the west side of the river. On this hike, I'll be coming down the east side, presumably on the same trail this picture was taken from. So I guess I was also on the Sheltowee Trace there. This year, I'll get to see more of the river upstream from the falls.

One side hike we took (which is on the opposite side of the river from the Sheltowee) was to Eagle Falls, a fun little dribble where you could wade in the pool and play on the rocks.

And we loved the bridge across the river. I'll be hiking this. It's also part of the trail.

In other news: I worked my little summer job this morning, got groceries, made myself get some things done on my never-ending lists, and sorted all the food I still have left from my NCT hike. Even dehydrated food can get stale. Some of it had become unpalatable. I threw all of the things out that even I am unwilling to eat. Nevertheless, I ended up with more than enough snack items for the hiking days on this trip. Washed the tub and packed it back up.

Most seriously, I started a list of the things I must get done before I leave for over a month on this hike. Big item on the list was to order new shock cord for the tent I want to take and a couple small items for the hike.

I have to admit... I'm always really happy while planning a hike!

See Best Buds