On Tuesday morning we packed up and the four of us (Tim, Kathy, Tom and I) headed out to drive to Ocean Isle Beach. Kathy had woke up during the night with a toothache and thought she might have a loose crown, so since we were going to be passing right by her dentist in Dawsonville, Ga., we stopped in for the dentist to take a look at her tooth and when he examined her he discovered that her tooth was broken and needed to be extracted immediately because there was a pocket of infection under it already. Anyway, following this we were on our way again after stopping at Kroger Pharmacy to fill her antibiotic prescription. We arrived at Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. around 5:30 p.m., a seven hour drive from Dawsonville, Ga.
We had rented "Turtle Cove", a 3 bedroom/3 bath beach house for the next three nights. My friend "Pigeon" (from my A.T. Hike) and her friend Linda were planning to meet us there. My friend "Skid" (from my A.T. Hike) and his wife Pat live here on Ocean Isle Beach and were expecting Tom and me and Tim and Kathy, but not Pigeon and Linda. What a wonderful surprise it was for Skid and Pat to see Pigeon and Linda so unexpectedly!
We loved "Turtle Cove" beach house! It was so spacious and clean and comfortable!
The first morning we were there, Tom and I got up early and made breakfast tacos for all of us. A great way to begin the day!
We loved the sun porch that faced out toward the canal!
And the nice pier/boat dock!
After the good breakfast of breakfast tacos, we met up with Skid and his dog Sandy for a walk around the eastern end of the island. It was a rather cool and damp morning and would rain lightly on us before we got back to our beach house. We ended up walking almost seven miles!
Here is Pigeon running to catch up to us after rescuing several deflated party balloons out of the palm tree.
We passed this very elaborate and whimsical "Barbie Beach"!
Skid's dog Sandy likes walking as much as we do!
We get our first glimpse (this trip) of the Atlantic Ocean!
It has been two years since my hike when I last saw Pigeon in Millinocket, Maine! I am so excited to see her again and be able to spend some time together. She was so much help and encouragement to me on my Thru-Hike!
Here is Pigeon and her friend Linda. I am still amazed that Linda came to Maine to hike up Mt. Katahdin with me and Pigeon, AND Linda made it all the way to the top! What an incredibly hard task that was!
Then I asked Tom to take a picture of Skid, Pigeon, and me--the three A. T. Hikers.
Just as he snapped the photo, the surf rolled in and we jumped for dryer ground!
So we tried that shot over again!
Ocean Isle Beach is one of North Carolina's barrier islands which lies east to west, just north of Sunset Beach and Myrtle Beach, S. C. The ever-pounding surf of the Atlantic Ocean continues to erode the eastern end of Ocean Isle Beach, taking along anything in its path out to sea, including homes! Over the years several have been moved while others have simply washed away!
These are on the eastern tip of the island and it is only a matter of time until they will be washed away also if they are not moved to higher ground.
All those gigantic sand bags are no match for the ocean's force!
Even though it was a windy, cool, damp, gray day we were still enjoying our walk along the beach. We saw lots of birds and Tom found a couple of pretty shells for our shell collection at home.
Skid led us down this road
and showed us where years ago there was once a ferry to get residents back and forth to the mainland before the nice big bridge was built across the Intracoastal Waterway which now connects Ocean Isle Beach to the mainland.
Then Skid led us along a wooded path that bordered the Intracoastal Waterway.
Then we crossed several wooden bridges as we walked along the marshy wetlands.
We saw some colorful grasses!
It was so nice to have that nice big house to just hang out on the sunporch, read a book, take a nap, or whatever any of us felt like doing after our long walk!
In the afternoon the sun peeked out so Tom, Tim, Kathy, and I walked down the street to the Fishing Pier. There were a lot of folks out on the pier fishing or just enjoying a lazy afternoon.
Back at the house, we enjoyed some lively card games and a game of Mexican Train Dominoes. Skid and Pat dropped by and Skid joined in the game of Mexican Train. Pat brought us a freshly baked apple pie! Wow, what a nice treat!
What a fun day today reconnecting with my A.T. hiker friends and spending time at the beach with Tim and Kathy!
Saturday and Sunday, October 5th & 6th
Tom's brother Tim, and Tom and I hiked up Mt. Oglethorpe this afternoon! What a steep, strenuous, beautifully wooded climb alongside Nancy Womack Stream which we crossed several times as it flowed down the mountain.
We left home yesterday afternoon and drove straight through to Tim and Kathy's home here in Big Canoe, Georgia, stopping only to fuel the car, stretch our legs, take a potty break, or switch drivers. When we arrived here, Tim and Kathy graciously served us eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast. What wonderful hosts they both are, always making us feel right at home when we come here to visit them in their beautiful home in the mountains of north Georgia. We enjoy our own downstairs "guest suite" which includes (besides bedroom/bath) a living area and large deck with an incredible view of the sun rising over Sanderlin Mountain.
After breakfast, Tim, Tom, and I went for a short two mile walk along the very steep and winding roads right outside their front door.
This photo in no way conveys how very steep and challenging this road walk really was!
Then in the late afternoon we decided to hike up Mt Oglethorpe (again right from their front door). This is amazing because the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail was originally at the top of Mt. Oglethorpe before building development on private land surrounding Mt. Oglethorpe forced the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to lop off a few miles of the Trail in the South and establish Springer Mountain as the southern terminus for the Appalachian Trail, where it remains today.
Anyway, we walked right out Tim and Kathy's front door and down the road a short distance to the Nancy Womack Trailhead and began our hike along the Nancy Womack Creek as the trail meandered back and forth across this stream, for a few hundred feet before we began the sharp ascent up Mt. Oglethorpe. Tom was struggling a little bit on the climb up the mountainside so we took it slow and stopped for short rest breaks often. Tim called Kathy to come and pick us up near the top where a road is. Thank you Kathy so much because we did not bring any water or anything with us so none of us wanted to go any further.
The Nancy Womack Trail was adorned with wildflowers, fungus, and snails!
Way back in time when the A.T.'s southern terminus was on top of Mt. Oglethorpe there was a monument there however over the years it was vandalized often so it was removed and placed in the nearby town of Jasper, Georgia.
We went into the town of Jasper, Ga. (after attending church with Tim & Kathy on Sunday morning) to check out the Georgia Marble Festival on Sunday afternoon. It was mostly craft booths, food tents, music, and kiddie rides, not much marble because we opted not to pay the $15 for a tour of the marble mine or a fee for a tour of the historic Tate House which is made of a strikingly beautiful pink marble. We did partake of some of the festival food offerings and we saw a cool old wooden water tower there in the park amid all the vendors.
Oh yes, we found a guy carving a hunk of marble and Tom retrieved himself a chunk of marble to take home with us! (That's Tim & Kathy with Tom.)
I have lost all interest in riding my horse, have not ridden him since Feb.1, probably won't ever ride again. All the time I was hiking the Appalachian Trail I would think about my Saddlebag women friends each week when Thursday rolled around, however I soon realized that I never once missed riding my horse. So when I returned home from my hike I made every effort to try to get back into the habit of riding my horse each Thursday but I kept finding excuses not to ride more often than not. Riding no longer holds any enjoyment for me, so now I feed ole "Tex" every day and pat him and tell him what a good boy he has been for me the last 26 years. He doesn't seem to mind at all!
Anyway, it has been a year since I hauled Tex in the horse trailer and it is such a nice trailer to just let it sit there so I decided to sell it. I made up nice colorful fliers w/photo advertising my trailer for sale and went around to all the feed stores, tack shops, gas stations, etc. posting these fliers.
Well after a couple of weeks and only having one phone call, I did what all my friends were telling me to do: craigslist!
Me? Craigslist? I've never even looked at craigslist! So my friend Lanette came over one afternoon and walked me thru the process of creating an ad w/photos and uploading it to craigslist, warned me of all the pros and cons of dealing on craigslist, what to look for, what to avoid. Lanette's help and advice was invaluable to me. I began getting phone calls almost immediately and within a couple of weeks some folks drove three hours, looked at the trailer, handed me the cash and drove away with my trailer. It was a little bittersweet, glad someone else can use it and also remembering all the good times I had with that trailer on Thursdays.
Back in the early Spring of this year I began clearing and whacking away at the "jungle" that was growing in back of our little house. It was a tangled mass of vines, bushy trees, old rolls of wire and asst. junk.
Little by little, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full, day after day I lopped and chopped my way through that "jungle".
Oh yeah, burn pile after burn pile too!
Today it is no longer a "jungle". We call it our "Backyard Park"! We can sit on our back patio now and look all the way across the hay meadow out beyond and there is so much more air flow in our backyard now, almost always a nice breeze in our Backyard Park. Toward the end of this project, Tom used his chainsaw to get rid of some of the things I could not cut with my loppers. What a difference a little hard work and sweat created. We love it!
One of the changes in my life since my Thru-Hike on the Appalachian Trail is that Tom and I are committed to lessening our impact on our planet by recycling everything we possibly can. Through our efforts, very little goes into a landfill now. Our system has evolved over time but this is working pretty well for us now:
The only thing out of my camera's view is the paper shredder. Any paper we cannot shred for recycling, we consider burnable trash. Behind our house we keep two large trash cans with lids where we can empty the drawer of plastic bottles and aluminum cans into for taking to recycler. That tiny silver/black trash can marked "trash" is what goes into a landfill when it finally fills up, which is not very often. We are amazed how easy this is and well it works. No more bags of trash sitting out at the road for pickup at our house! That is a good thing.
Tom's garden is all but gone for this year, however the bell, banana, and jalapeno peppers just keep on growing, and we keep on picking them and chopping them, bagging them for the freezer for cooking with all thru the fall and winter.
