One day, not so long ago, I determined that I needed a little me time, so I booked a couple of nights at Hanging Rock State Park. I packed up the tent, my new camping love seat, and a hammock that Derek surprised me with for early mother’s day. Also some food and camping supplies, […]
hiking
congaree national park.south carolina with pals.
The driving factor for our trip to South Carolina was Congaree National Park. We have been in the area of it a few times, but knowing it was so close to home, not really a top tier National Park, and not RV friendly has had us put it off every time. But, we wanted to […]
march miscellany. 2021 edition.
In like a lion, out like a lamb. Or at least that’s the saying in Western New York. Pertaining to the weather. Well, it works here for me too. I started out March in a really bad place about teaching. And then, I quit. I gave my notice on March 3rd, spent the next two […]
stone mountain, attempt three.
Thanks to my new status as unemployed, on the first beautiful day after I turned in my equipment, the Lidkids and I headed for the mountains. We opted for Stone Mountain, which we have done a few times before, and is about 4.5ish miles and 1000 feet of elevation gain. Hazel had never gone with […]
pilot mountain with new gramz.mental health day #3 (fail).
In late February, my mom came down to visit. It worked out nicely, because I had a faux-long weekend from teaching. For some reason, there were two “remote” days built into the calendar on Friday and Monday, which technically meant that the kids who were doing in-person school would be remote that day, but because […]
mental health hike #2, with ponies!
After another dismal week of virtual teaching, Anna and I set off for Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia, for another mental health day of hiking. I’ve seen so many epic pictures of this park, which is famous for it’s roaming wild ponies, but never any in winter. We knew that there would be snow, […]
mental health hike #1.
In the first few weeks of my short-lived virtual teaching career, I was working both days of the weekends, just trying to keep afloat. That was obviously not a sustainable situation, so I began to carve out one entire day devoted to NOT anything to do with teaching whatsoever. And, if the weather was agreeable, […]
fall hike at the chimneys.
for our last fall leaves adventure of 2020, we decided to go for vista views over waterfalls. we deliberated between finding a new spot or revisiting an old favorite hike, but in the end “old favorite” won out and we returned to the chimneys in linville gorge. the drive to the hike is an adventure […]
linville falls.
derek didn’t have as much time off during our time in the lenoir and linville area, so i took a few solo trips with the kiddos. one such adventure was to linville falls. this is also a pretty heavily trafficked area, but we went on a weekday and took a more difficult trail than most […]
fall at crabtree falls.
after our trip to the outer banks, we had a one day layover at home, doing laundry and switching out wardrobes, before heading to lenoir for a few days in the mountains. it was peak leaf season, so we wanted to see some beautiful fall color, but we also wanted to balance that with other […]