Thursday, July 10, 2008

Bears? We will never know.

On the June 28th we went for a hike on the AT to McAffee Knob which is about 30 minutes or so from Blacksburg. The hike is nearly 4 miles from the parking lot in Catawba, VA to one of the most famous photo opportunities on the AT. It appeared as if it T-storms would cut the hike short, but they faded away after about 20 minutes of hiking. The hike isn't too difficult itself. 8 miles round trip isn't too bad as it takes us about 2 and a half hours to do such a hike. But my blood sugar got low and it was warm if not hot. I was sweating pretty good. As we got near the knob we were walking through some sort of berry bushes when we heard some rather load rustling in the woods. In case you didn't know, bears love berries. Also, the 2 times I've seen bears in the wild it was at about 5/6 in the evening. Well, wouldn't you know that it was about 5:15? So, we started blowing on the whistle and talking more to make sure that the bears? knew we were around. You don't want to suprise them comign around a corner. We heard more rustling at different points of the hike to the knob...it could have been something else like a racoon but I don't think so. We also saw two snakes on the trail. The first a garder snake and the second a black snake on the side of the trail. Michelle came upon them first...so she scared them off.
Last weekend for the 4th we stuck around Blacksburg to watch the fireworks and did a bit of fishing. Michelle caught her first fish! A small 7 inch or so Largemouth...picture to follow at some point. The firework show was nice. On Saturday we went to Charlotte to visit w/ the Hollands for Quinn's first birthday party. While there we checked out a couple edgy neighborhoods, NoDa and Central. Cool, but small. Charlotte is very generic so it was nice to find a place like these. Unfortunately, you can do everything the neighborhood has to offer in just under 2 hours and that includes eating. On Sunday we went with Charlie and Lisa to the Wine Festival on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd. The festival was ruined by rain. This did not stop us from tasting many different area wines. I believe the central VA wineries to be better, as the climate produces better grapes for the wine. Like I know what I'm talking about.

Oh...Ed...as an upcoming teacher...your blog is on the public domain...you may want to dial back the cussing!

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