Crowders Mountain

Paul and I decided to go hiking at Crowders Mountain today. (I decided to put off my work until tomorrow... I needed a day off.) We had both heard of Crowders Mountain, but we didn't know it was so close. It is located between Charlotte and the Appalachian Mountains. It is right near Kings Mountain. Kings Mountain is very historic, but it's not a real hiking adventure. The trails are all paved and it's more like a hill than a mountain. However, Crowders Mountain was a lot of fun! We were surprised at how rocking and natural the trails were. So far, Crowders Mountain is not that big of a tourist trap.




After arriving at Crowders Mountain, we decided to take the Pinnacle Trail which was about 2 miles to the Pinnacle and 2 miles back to the car. The trail was very rocky. It really felt like hiking. I liked the fact that there weren't ropes or fences everywhere preventing people from going off the trail. It's no fun if you can't explore a little.

The 2 miles to the top were rough.. it was very steep. However, the view from the top was well worth it. When you reach the end of the trail, there is sign that says "Trail Ends Here", but there is a huge boulder right behind the sign. You are suppose to climb the boulder to get on top of the mountain, so it was a fun rock climbing adventure. The top of Crowders was flat so you got a 360 view from the top. It didn't have trees covering the top like most mountains do, so the view was amazing! There were no fences or gaurd rails to take away from the natural beauty or protect people from falling off, so you have to use common sense. It was neat to see Charlotte off in the distance. It was nice seeing God's Creation from such height. Unlike when you are in the Appalachians, there aren't millions of Mountains to look at, but what looks like a never ending sea of land... That was off in the eastward direction as was Charlotte. In the westward direction, you could see the Appalachian Mountains miles away...





















Now.. the stairs here weren't natural, but most of the trail was just rocks... Humans need help going up steep hills.








Here is the end of the trail...


View from the top..




Westward View

Climbing up more of the ridge

360 Degree View....

Depending on how brave you were you could go further on top of the cliff. Paul and I ventured to the end of the cliff top, so we were able to see some awesome sights and enjoy the warm sun.

We saw hawks or eagles (not sure) flying around the mountain probably looking for fresh meat...

If you click on the photo below, you can see Charlotte way off in the distance.

It was a nice mini-vacation. :) If family or friends come visit, we will take you.. it's free! (No fees to park or hike just yet! :) )

It's Ivy's Birthday

Happy Birthday Ivy!

I hope you have a wonderful day!

I love you!

Update

Hello!

I am feeling somewhat better. Well, that was until I had to sweep my classroom. Someone hasn't been cleaning it lately. :( I swept it all up today. I got 4 dust pan loads of trash and dirt up. I am shocked at how kids think they can just drop their trash on your floor. After eating candy they will just throw the wrappers under their seat, like no one notices. Anyways, my allergies have been acting up since then. But! I am feeling much better! :) I think the sinus infection has cleared up.

This morning was stressful. I was running late, so I was in a hurry to get out the door. I got in my car at 6:15 and headed out of the garage onto the street. As I was driving down the street, I heard a strange thump thump noise. I kinda knew it must be my tires because I have had the air pressure is low light on for over 3 months now. Paul keeps filling up my tires each weekend. So... I let go of the steering wheel for a second to see which side the flat was on and the car jerky to the right. I got out in the pouring rain and sure enough my front right tire was so flat that my rim was touching the road. The Lord was watching out for me. I'm so glad I didn't get on the interstate or get further down the road! I was able to turn around and drive home. Unfortunately, I had to wake Paul up at 6:15. He was very sweet about it. I got home and I moved all my stuff to his car. I left for work. You can't miss a day as a teacher. Plus, subs are really busy right now with teachers running out of gas (I'd have to take a day without pay if I can't come in for gasoline reasons). There is no gas anywhere. So Paul took care of getting my car fixed up today. He was so nice about it! :)

Well, we were hoping to go to Aiken this weekend. I really wanted to see everyone, but I don't have enough gas. I have enough to get to work on Monday, but that's it. I was hoping to fill up today because they said we'd get a big shipment in, but all the gas stations are empty. I really hope they fill up by tomorrow.

That's about all the excitement right now. I'm going to be pretty busy at work the next week.

Finally, the foyer is no longer empty. :)

This weekend Paul and I took on the foyer. It's been very bare for way to long. I was hoping to go with a modern them with bright colors, but ended up with a country look. It carries into the living room where we have a cabin painting over the fireplace. Not as modern as I'd hoped for, but we like it. Not sure why we picked ducks, but they matched the picture we bought.

This was all brought to you by Target. :)

The other side. I got the boxes from Kirklands and put random stuff in them.

We still need to get a bench and curtains to make it complete.

The ducks! For Christmas, I'm going to tie red ribbons around their necks. :)

3rd Anniversary Trip

A year ago, for our 2nd anniversary, I planned a trip for Paul. He didn't know where we were going, so this year, it was Paul's turn, so for the past month I have had no idea about where we were going from August 8th -10th. I thought we'd be going to the beach after a few comments Paul made, but I wasn't sure.

After taking care of all that fun medical stuff on Friday morning, I began packing a variety of things for the trip. Still, not knowing where Paul was taking me. We finally got on the road at 1PM and started driving. Once Paul got on I-85, I knew it wasn't the beach, but I still had no idea where we were going. I figured it had to be mountains, but that could have been anywhere along the Appalachian.

We drove down I-85 going completely through SC and into GA. I still had no idea where we were going, but I was pretty sure it was a mountain location. Finally, Paul needed help navigating through GA back country, so I had to help read the directions to him. The directions were thus: "After about 5 miles GA-17 will become GA-17 North/GA-365 South/US-123 South. Continue on GA-17/GA-365/US-123 about 5 miles until it meets up with US-23/US-441/GA-15/GA-365". This was taken straight from the directions. Have you ever seen a road that was going South and North at the same time? Confusing... Why so many road names? Why not just one?

After navigating our way, I realized we were staying at a place near Helen, GA right in the middle of the mountains. At 4:30, we arrived at the cabin. Paul picked out a gorgeous cabin in the mountains through cabinrentals.





View from cabin



We were 30 minutes outside of Helen. Helen, GA is very touristy. Paul wanted to go some place more rural, and he found one of the most rural places I've ever been to..

Right after arriving, we needed to get some groceries, so the nearest grocery store was 20 minutes way in Blairsville, GA. We got back in the car and headed to the Ingles in Blairsville. We grabbed some water and snacks, but we also wanted to get some beer. Paul searched the store back and forth, but he could not find any alcohol, anywhere!!! I figure maybe I can find it, so I run around the whole store searching for beer. Well, Paul had to ask the cashier. She, in a whisper, said "Dis is a dry county. We don't sell alcohol here." Yeah, this is how rural this place is. They still had a mammoth cigarette selection, but no alcohol. How hypocritical. Anyways, Paul ask where we can find some and the cashier says in a whisper "Well, my cousin get his beer from this bp station in the next town. It's about 15 minutes that way."

Paul and I feeling like we were evil for asking for alcohol scooted out of the store with our heads low and headed to the Bp station. The Bp Station had signs all over it announcing they had beer! On our way back to the cabin (before Blairsville), we noticed a winery and figure why not, so we drove down to a very quaint winery called "Crane Creek". They had some of the best wine I've ever tasted. Crane Creek was closing up when we got there, so we weren't able to enjoy the property.. beautiful lake, cow field, rolling hills, and cottage... for long, but we did enjoy some wine tasting. :) We got 2 bottles to take home.

We arrive back at the cabin at about 7. We sat out on the back deck and rocked in the rocking chairs for a bit. The temperature was only in the 70's, so it felt great. Then, we ate the frozen pizza we got at Ingles. After dinner, we decided to walk around the cabin. There were 2 other cabins near ours, but no one was staying in them, so the place was very quite and rural! We walked around the cabin and up to a road that was alittle ways in the woods from the cabin. We walked up a really steep hill and then back down.. after that we decided to head back to the cabin.

Well, on our way back, we heard a 4 wheeler coming. All of a sudden the 4 wheeler pops out of the woods and the guy riding it miss judges the ditch he's heading straight into and flips over. The 4 wheeler was on top of him. Paul rushes to help get the 4 wheeler off. They both were able to get it lifted up. The guy was unhurt, but explain to us that he was having an argument with the folks that own the cabin we were staying in. They put up a chain to prevent him from biking on their property. If the chain wasn't there, he wouldn't have had to go into the ditch. He doesn't think that was very fair that they won't let him bike through their property to get to the other road... he continued cussing out the folks for a bit and we convinced him it was time to get his 4 wheeler back on the road. He then began pulling the chain down by tugging at a beautiful fur tree (I think that's what they are called-look like Christmas trees)... almost bending the whole thing over until Paul and I showed him he could remove the chain by pulling it over the nails that were in the pine tree on the other side. Poor tree!

That was the excitement for Friday. Saturday, we had a busy day planned. We went hiking in Vogel State Park. We decided to hike the 4 mile trail up Blood Mountain. The lady at the visitor center said it would take 2 hours, but we thought we could it in less. Wow! This was the STEEPEST trail I have ever climbed. You are completely exhausted after only a few steps.



About to start the trail...









The never ending climb....


Finally, near the top...



View from the top..









Still, it only took us an hour and 45 minutes to go all the way around. We still showed up the usual time. :)

After that, we went into Helen, GA for lunch and to go tubing (doughnut floats) down the Chattahoochee River. Helen was very crowded, so we had to wait a bit for lunch. It was 2 before we finally got to eat at Troll Tavern, but the food was good.


Some pictures from Helen





A restuarant called Paul's





Eating at the Troll Tavern

At 3, we went to the tubing place. I wasn't able to take pictures of us going down the river because I was worried my camera would get wet. It was suppose to take 2 hours, but it ended up taking us 3 hours to go about 2 miles. The river was really low, so your tube would get stuck on the rocks alot, so you had to get out and push. It was a very refreshing way to end the day, not as relaxing as we'd hoped, but fun. There were a ton of people in the river as well and that would lead to some traffic jams, as you can see from the photo below. It was taken when we were in Helen about to eat lunch.





It was fun, but you had to sit in cold water for 3 hours with wet shoes. It started to get cold at 5:30, so we were glad when the ride finally ended. Paul was tired from pushing us both off the rocks the entire trip.

We headed home and ate the rest of the pizza and watched the olympics. We were completely exhausted from the uphill hiking and hiking/tubing down the Chatahookie River. It was fun though. :)
Sunday, we had to pack up and get out of the cabin pretty early. I noticed when I went to the back deck to pick up our clothes that had gotten wet from tubing.. that some mice had walked across our clothes and across the towels. There were droppings all over them.. .... Then, I noticed my shirt! A mouse decided to start eating it! See picture below:


I had to throw it out. :( Ah well! At least it didn't eat anything else or burrow in my wet tennis shoes. :)

We got back to Charlotte at about 2:30. I'm just doing some laundrying and trying to relax before training all next week....

My room and eye doctor appointment

I made it to the school at 9 this morning to start work on my classroom. My room had a lot of old textbooks and material of the last teacher scattered about. I was able to move some of the books along the shelf down giving myself some more room at my desk.

It took a little while to clean all 32 desk whith wet wipes and arrange them in traditional rows. It's amazing how much room 32 desk take up. I'm sure I'll be spreading them out more after the first few weeks of school. My mentor caught up with me at 10 and she looked over my lesson plans. She said they looked good. She also told me we'd have a homeroom class that was 30 minutes each morning, so I need to find something to do with that class each day. She suggested making it required reading time for them. I might do that or just give them basic math problems to do. It's really just for taking attendance and morning announcements.

My mentor will also help me set up my seating charts. She was a 7th grade teacher last year, so she knows all my students for this year. :) She's going to let me know their personalities and tell me where they should sit. She's been really helpful. We also printed out all the worksheets for the first week which was around 1000 sheets of paper, so that took an hour at the copier.

After she left, I was able to decorate two really small bulletin boards in my room. They are probably 3ft by 3ft. I only have two of them which means less bulletin board decorating for me! :) I left the school at 1:30 and headed to down town Charlotte for my eye doctors appointment which was at 3.

I stopped by chick-fi-la for lunch at 2:30! I love that place! :) I got my usual number 5 combo (chicken nugget and fries) with a sweet tea. Yum!

I get to the doctors at 2:45 and I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork because this was my first time at this doctors. The last 2 years I've gone to another doctor who insist that I get Lasik surgery done immediately. (This surgery is $1,3o0 per eye. Plus, it has risk.). After completing all the paperwork, I find out they are having trouble with my insurance, so it took another 45 minutes to get that straightened out. Finally, the assistant takes me back at 3:30. She checks my vision with my contacts in.(My vision is really bad. It's -7.00 in the left and -6.50 in the right. It gets worse each year, so the letters were a little blurry, but I was able to do well on the pre-eye exam. )Then, I take my contacts out and the world goes foggy.. then it gets worse after she puts the dilation medication in my eyes. My whole family has trouble with this medicine. Our eyes dilate really easily, so my eyes were completely black within seconds!


So.. I wait another 30 minutes because according to the assistant my eyes needed to dilate (saying this without noticing they were already black!). Finally, I go back with the assistant again. She starts doing the "eye exam".. the part the doctors is suppose to do. I'm a little annoyed at this point, but I figure whatever she must be specialized enough to do it.

Well, she adjust the lenses on the big eye thing (not sure what to call it). Anyways, the thing that tells the doctor what prescription you need for your eyes. She adjust it to my usual strength first and shows me some things to read. I can't see any of the letters. Really! It was just a strip of white blurr that would change in size, but I couldn't see a single LETTER! She was very perturbed with me. At this point, she figures my eyes must be really dry, so she puts eye drops in them. Again, I tried my hardest. Every now an then, I could make out a line or two and guess what the letter was, but it was a guess. She increased the strength of the lenses to the highest they could go, but I still couldn't read any of the letters on the charts she showed me. She was getting concerned and frustrated at this point, so she runs to get the doctor.

So... the doctor comes in, clearly not too excited about being a doctor today. He does the exact same thing the assistant did. I still can't read any of the letters. I go through 50 to 60 lens changes with him. A few letters I could guess at but most I couldn't see, just white. These moments would really ANNOY the doctor. He would respond with "Well, could you at least try?" (I'm sitting there thinking.. "Ok, let me just randomly guess some letters! Would that help?") I'm honest and say "I really can't make out anything. It's just white.". He makes a comment that "You would need a seeing eye dog if you can't read this!". (In my head, I'm thinking.. "Well, where do I get one of those?") I respond "I could see this before the dilation and with my contacts in. I don't know why I can't read it now". His conclusion is that the dilation has caused my cornea to stretch which makes my nearsightedness worse. He decided that he can't make a new prescription for me now. I'll have to come back later.


Problem: This place is an hour away from work. I start training next week which is from 8 to 3:30 every day and then for the next year my schedule will be 8 to 3:30. There is no way I can make it to the last appointment which is 3:45. So.. I beg him to let me come in tomorrow at the office in Rock Hill, SC at 9:15. That is 40 minutes from my house. On top of this, I have to get my second Hep B vaccination shot for work tomorrow because it's exactly 2 weeks from my first shot and the nurse only does this from 8:30 to 11AM tomorrow. Some how tomorrow.. I have to drive 40 minutes to Rock Hill for hopefully just an hour long appointment.. then an hour to uptown Charlotte to get my Hep B shot.. then 30 minutes home. So tomorrow morning won't be much fun. :(


Oh.. on top of all that, my insurance doesn't cover 2 yearly eye exams, just one, so I'm getting charged for both.. It would have been just 20 bucks today. Now, $65 dollars today and tomorrow it will be $40.00. I haven't even bought contacts yet! Grr...


Driving home wasn't much fun. I had to put my contacts in, of course, but still the world was very blurry. I only recognized signs by there shapes, not the words. I'm glad they threw in a few of the shape, not words, questions on the driving test.

My big question of the day is: So.. when will optometrist realized that you can't dilate someone's eyes before the eye exam?

Anyways, hopefully this blog makes sense. My eyes are still somewhat dilated, but I can see much much much better now since the medicine has worn off some. :)