The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and this is mine.

Tag: friends Page 1 of 2

Morining on the farm

Mornings are for enjoying

A quick aside. It’s Saturday morning. The sun is out. The morning looks bright. Despite the insane pollen, I’ve decided to enjoy this morning. A hot cup of Cafe Mocha, a pancake breakfast, and some quality catch-up time. Later today, I’m planning to make some poles for my scout troop’s dining flys (replacements from our stolen trailer episode) and then take Radar for a long walk.

I’ve done a couple of campouts this year I still need to unpack including an awesome trip in to Florida last month for the Battle of Olustee Reenactment. I’ll try to get out more on those soon. but for now, I’m just going to enjoy the morning.

#

Did you enjoy or find this post useful? Please let me know by leaving a comment below or join me on Instagram or Facebook.

Santee SP Camp at night

Hiking South Carolina – Santee State Park (with a Free recipe!)

It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve last camped at Santee. It was nice to get back out to this park. Working with a youth group this time, we camped in the primitive “Scout Camping” area at Santee State Park. Santee is yet another State Park gem in the South Carolina State Park system.

Santee SP boat ramp looking over Lake Marion
Santee SP boat ramp looking over Lake Marion

Set on the wester bank of Lake Marion, this park offers ready access to the lake, fishing, and camping. This 2500 acre park park in Santee Cooper County is easy to get to. It’s just 3 miles north of I-95 and the town of Santee. It’s a popular camping and recreation site for anyone seeking a break from the daily grind. While I’m usually found in the group or primitive campsite, there are about 158 standard camping sites, including 30 cabins. This park also has about 10 miles of bike/hiking trail. Somehow I’ve overlooked these in the past. I defiantly need to add these to my things-to-explore list for my next trip.

I’ve been to this camp dozens of times over the years. After a long hiatus, it was interesting to find virtually nothing had changed, at least at the primitive site. While functional, the primitive area old cold water bathrooms seemed exactly the same, down to the same peeling paint. Again functional, but unchanged in over a decade. I was able to get out of camp for a short walk. See a video of the hike here and let me know what you think.

Cooking class table layout
Cooking class

Our main purpose for this trip was to teach and model different cooking techniques for new campers. We included base camp and backpack style recipes, foods and food preparation, and cooking methods.

Free Recipe

Here is one simple quick backpacker recipe which everyone seemed to enjoy.

Chicken & Stuffing
Ingredients: 
1 Package of Chicken/Turkey Flavored Seasoned Stuffing Mix
1 or 2 Foil Pouches of cooked chicken.
1/2 to 1 Cup of water

In a group size pot (+- 1 liter), boil the cup of water and remove from heat. Add the cooked chicken, stir. Add the stuffing mix, stir well. Serve.

A 12-once package of stuffing mix can feed about two hikers. Adding a couple 2 or 3-ounce packs of chicken will boost up the protein. You can fancy the meal up with a few cranberry raisins and chopped nuts stirred in from your trail mix too.  

Favorite Time of year: Anytime for camping.

Things to Know: The breeze off the lake can be refreshing in the summer. However can lower the chill factor in the winter.

Camping: Camping is available at Santee State Park (reservations required).

Pet friendly: Must be leashed at all times, including the forest, okay everywhere outdoors except cabin and lodging areas of the park.

Getting There: Santee State Park is just North of I-95 and the town of Santee. It’s about an 1 hour drive from the Charleston. area.

#

Did you enjoy or find this post useful? Please let me know by leaving a comment below or join me on Instagram or Facebook.

Night sky on Johns Island SC

When Is Something Broken Good?

This past weekend I camped with a group of fellow campers on Johns Island. While not summer hot, the weather started out a bit warm.

Fall in South Carolina can still have some pretty warm weather. It can also have some of the best camping weather around. So far this fall the weather has been generally good with the heat of summer is gone, but the evenings still have been hovering between a little too warm and almost cool. Camping weather in the fall is some of the best here because its mostly dry, the bugs are fading, and the evening temperatures are cooler. The days are in the comfortable tee-shirt temperature zone and the nights can dip down in to the sleeping bag snuggling temperatures.

Activities while camping are great don’t get me wrong, but there is something special about camping sleeping. It’s a little complicated to explain, probably because there are so many things which affecting how well someone sleeps outdoors. Partly I think one of the benefits is your body gets to re-tuned and return to natures natural circadian rhythm. For me, one of the big contributors of a good nights sleep is temperature. Too warm and you’re laying in a puddle of sweat, too cold and you’re shivering, either way sleep doesn’t come easily when you are outside of the “great sleeping weather” zone.

When is something broken a good thing? When the heat of the summer breaks for the fall camping weather. There is something special about being a witness to the changing of weather. This past weekend I was able to see and feel this shift, the breaking in to the cooler fall camping weather. It rolled in as a small weather front Saturday afternoon. You could see the clouds moving in, covering the clear blue South Carolina sky. There was a light sprinkling of rain, and then just like that, the cooler weather was here. Sleeping that night, blanketed in a warm sleeping bag, in the shelter of my tent, was great.

#

Did you enjoy or find this post useful? Please let me know by leaving a comment below or join me on Instagram or Facebook.

Happy New Year!

I’m back in my proper time zone now, winding down 2018 with my girlfriend at the farm. Family is home and my daughter wished us a happy new year from the future (she is all the way in tomorrow). The clock is slowly ticking down the remaining hours and minutes of 2018.

Tick.

Tock.

I am looking forward to seeing what the new year brings. I am trying not to pre-build expectations, but as we transition from one year to the next, there is much to be thankful for. The ones we love and care about most are topping my list. 2019 will come no mater what, and like every dawn, new opportunities will present if you watch for them.

Sometimes, when hiking, the trail is so hard, my focus is just on the next step. Then the next step. Then the next step. Until I can catch my breath and start looking about at what is around me. This is when I am in awe of the world, when cresting a ridge, the view relieved, you realize the wonder, presented to you.

I wish everyone a wonderful and glorious new year, may the trail you taking, be amazing.

#

I’m an international time traveler, and other recent discoveries.

Today I just realized I am an international time traveler, as I prepare to travel back in time and home.

Just over a week ago I traveled into the future to visit my daughter. She lives in Okinawa with her husband and my daughter’s daughter which would make her my granddaughter. My daughter’s baby, not my daughter.

Anyway as I’m preparing for my return journey, and I’m trying to explain my itinerary to my girlfriend and it dawned on me, I will be traveling back in time to get home. Kind of like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, but she didn’t time travel. I think her travel was more interdimensional. Anyway the conversation went some thing like this.

Me (on 12/22): Current itinerary sent to your email, the short version being I am scheduled to land back in Charleston 907am on 12/23.

Her: I thought you were getting back Monday morning. Did you change something?

Me (slightly confused because, you know, future): No I didn’t change anything, airlines might have. However I also don’t remember signing up for a 12-hour lay-over either.

Her: 24th silly, Christmas Eve day Monday. They must have changed something.

Me (still the confused one): I land Sunday 12/23. I think. I thought I was leaving 12/21 too? (Hmm)

Her: Okay. You do recall it was Monday when we talked? Are you leaving Saturday now? and you really go back on time to arrive here Sun morning at 9! Interesting.

Me: I don’t know other than I’m starting home to you tomorrow.

(As it starts to dawn on) Me: I’m in the future here! Today is Saturday evening. My Sunday starts tomorrow and will run something like 35 hours.

Future excited Me: I can the tell you the future because I’m so far in to tomorrow. Ask me something! It will be like groundhog day for me. I leave here Sunday morning and land in New York Saturday. So I actually will be going back in time to yesterday tomorrow. Great isn’t it? Oh! This will make me an international time traveler!

Her (the smart one): It’s just a long plane flight.

I’m still adding the title to my resume.

#

Ready or not, here we go!

My backpack is packed inside a suitcase, waiting by the front door. In the morning we leave for an adventure. The last time I did this I ended up hiking on a broken leg for four days.

My brother and I are heading west in the morning to explore the wilds of Arizona for several days. In all fairness, last time I thought I had just sprained my ankle. Note to self; don’t fall down a mountain this time.

#

Events in our lives

So many things happen to so many people every day. Some good, some bad, some incredible good. It’s really nice when something really good happens to someone you know.

My niece is married today. Normally separated ones with long distances, it’s great to get together with families and friends. The setting was a little different (aviation museum) but absolutely perfect. On this day where we recognize the veterans in our country, my heart swells and my eyes water a little as I look around at the great joy of wedding celebrations with the military backdrop. It’s a little strange for me, knowing what these historical aircraft meant in a world at war and yet the happiness and joy with the purpose of our gathering. My love goes out to my family and friends tonight, may my niece and her new husband enjoy many, many, happy years together.

#

Table Rock Revisited

Of course, it always starts out easy enough, this hike, with the wooden board walk and paved walk ways, winding around the gentle water falls cascading down the mountain. It’s really not far to the trail junction where all the trails head in different directions. Pick your poison as they say. We turn left, and head west, along the Pinnacle Mountain trail for the start of a two day trek through one of my favorite, but probably one of the most challenging, state parks in South Carolina, Table Rock.

I am lucky to take another group of new backpackers out in to this wilderness again. Our overnight trek will loop around the outer perimeter of the park in a +-12.5 mile loop. Honestly, the distance is the easy part. We will gain and loose thousands of feet over the next mere twenty four hours. With the weight of my pack, it feels good to be back on the trail again. It’s been a couple years since I was here last (with my son and daughter, it was late fall I think) and the trail is familiar, yet some how different. We slowly climb as the trail winds towards Pinnacle Mountain. Our goal is the campsites just out of the west end of the park on the Foothills Trail. It’s only 5 miles away. The trail generally keeps climbing, but we’re moving slow. We pass under a small water fall. Some of the spur trails are closed and there seems to be a lot more  green underbrush growth than I remember.  We hike on to the the west to Bald Knob Outcrop and take a needed break. The view here is amazing in the late afternoon. Inspirational probably really doesn’t describe it well. I would love to sit there and watch the sky roll slowly from baby blue to a darkening deep purple as the night advances, but it’s getting late, and we have miles to go before we rest. Really, miles still. We reach the Foothills trail spur from the Pinnacle Mountain Trail and begin our 800 foot decent in to the valley where we’ll spend the night. Every step down hill will be a step up hill tomorrow as we come back this way. We reach our camp with just enough light to set up camp, make dinner, and relax a little before the darkening deep purple rolls to the blackness of night. The ground is hard and uneven but we’ve hiked our five miles in just under six hours and I sleep well anyway.

It turns out there was a wildfire a last year which burned over 10,000 acres around Table Rock and Pinnacle Mountain. This explains the charred and burned trees, and the subsequent rebirth of the green undergrowth I’ve seen. Kind of like natures way of re-freshening things. Unfortunately there are also signs of beetle damage killing back some of the trees. And there is plenty of recent storm damage with yet uncleared down trees crossing the trails. There so much unrecognized work in maintaining trails, most people take clear trails for granted.

I’m up early before the sun, I pack and eat while the rest of the crew is starting to stir. Morning camp chores need to be done, water gathered, and sleepy hikers motivated. Finally we are hiking, in a light morning drizzle of course. It wouldn’t be camping if it didn’t rain. We hike back up that 800 feet now to regain our trail and on to the top of Pinnacle Mountain at 3415′. We are painfully slow this morning. The slow grinding up hill takes it’s toll on time. I fuss but it’s really all good, I think. The east bound Ridge Trail is good to travel and regain some time. I love being on the ridges. It’s just getting to them which is the challenge. We’re making good time. We’ve planned to meet our main group of day-hikers on Table Rock for lunch, so we’re hiking under a schedule, which can add a pesky “time” element to things. We make Panther Gap, thank goodness. Here we drop our packs and just take food and drink with us for lunch. Two miles to go. The Table Rock summit is guarded by the approach to Governor’s Rock. You need to climb now to get to Governor’s Rock, then you’re allowed to climb some more to get to the Table Rock summit of 3124′. It’s really kind of amazing when you round one turn in the trail to face a 50′ rock climb, only to crest it, and look up at another. Governor’s Rock is a bald outcropping which offers an amazing view of where we came from. Sitting on the warm rock face, Pinnacle Mountain to the west and the ridge between look so green and pleasant. We finally reached the summit, passing our day hiking group on their way down. The overlook views from atop Table Rock allow you to see virtually the entire South Carolina Piedmont region, almost all the way back to Columbia, on a good day, when the clouds don’t roll in. We had a few moments of great views before the clouds wrapped around us. Alas, lunch is over and we must go, we have a couple miles to go back and pick up our packs, then another couple miles to get down and off trail before dark. we’re descending 2000′ in those sweet short four miles.

While this Table Rock Trail is rated “Very Strenuous” (I may just have a few other special words to describe some of it), I do find it rewarding to take this hike and bring others along to share the joy of these special mountains. Hopefully this will warm the embers of outdoor exploration in some of these these new hikers, the way it has in the past with the young hikers before them. I’ve hiked these mountains many times now, at the end of the day you know you’ve done something, okay maybe not, but even tired, with aching knees and sore feet, there are times I would rather be on the ridge, walking under the shade of the forest canopy, than anywhere else.

#

Hiking with Radar

I just came back from a great weekend camping with Brenda and Radar at #CroftStatePark in the SouthCarolina up-state. Brenda rode with friends and I took Radar on his first ever, real trail hike! We covered about 11 miles in one day with 8.5 of it along the Croft Passage of the Palmetto Trail. While he and I have gone for walks before, this was Radar’s first real hiking on a trail in the woods venture, and he did really really well, he’s such a good boy!

Pikes peak through The Garden of the Gods

There is snow on Pike’s Peak

According to the Denver Post, Pikes Peak picked up some snow this weekend and commented as a fitting indication of the start of the changing seasons.

Last year I hiked to the peak of this amazing mountain with my family and absolutely loved it (now I’ve been able to catch my breath – at the time I think I probably just liked it). I loved hiking this mountain and would hike it again and again if I could.

The new piece from the Denver Post was one of those blips which shows up in your news feed. It reminded me how thank full I was then and am now. So many thing can change in a persons life over a year, I think it’s important to recognize the good things which happen and the good people which happen to you.

#

Page 1 of 2

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén