Sweet Nothings

My husband has a new term of endearment for me. Darling? Sweetheart? Not even close. I may tell you later.

So, last week I had to respond to a friend's emergency and it kept me away from home for a few days. All will be well with my friend's family. She's terribly worried that she inconvenienced me, but the worst she did was caused me to skip my planned hike on Sunday and finish up a few quilts for a Monday deadline. No biggie.

Today was spent sitting through two classes, so I basically yawned all day and felt sorry for myself. When I got home I loudly said, "No more!" (Forceful, aren't I?) I grabbed my trail shoes and my daypack and hit the AT. I've stated before that I want to hike all 88 miles of the Appalachian Trail in New York this summer, so today I furthered that goal. Since the NY/NJ trail maps are currently out of print, I borrowed a set of maps from the library. There's a full topographical map on one side and an elevation chart on the reverse. I've been saving today's hike for when I was up for a challenge. The elevation chart showed it going straight up -- and it surely did that. If you question that, borrow my calves for tonight.

The first part of today's hike was, as I mentioned, somewhat steep. I could hear running water for quite a bit of it, so I wasn't too surprised that I had to cross it at some point. What was a pleasant suprise was the quality of the bridge. There's not always a bridge and I've shown pictures of bridges that make my knees knock. (I'm not a happy bridge crosser which is odd since I've always lived near major rivers and have had huge bridges as part of my everyday life. I just never enjoyed the bridge-crossing aspects of my everyday life.) So, today's bridge was quite safe secure sturdy lovely.

Wouldn't you be happy to cross this bridge?

Have you every played Jenga? It's this game where there is a tower make of little wooden tiles that you pull out and stack on top of the pile and try and keep it from falling over. Well, this reminded me of a Jenga tower.

I thought the fungus in this picture looked like little butterfly wings.

I know, I'm weird. Yes, my husband bought me a camera for my birthday and all I take are pictures of decaying wood. Sounds like a T-shirt, doesn't it?

I'm still learning to use my camera (wait, isn't there an instruction book somewhere that I should maybe read?) so this picture doesn't do a great job of showing just how GREEN everything was today.

Hiking at dinnertime has it's advantages, and one of them is that the sun is at a really cool angle and you get to see scenes like these:

This next picture is really a part of the Appalachian Trail, I promise. If you don't believe me, enlarge the photo and look at the brown sign on the left side of the road. You should see some white marks. The official AT markers are white strips that are 2x6-inches. The trail goes under a major highway by following this road for a short time.

Since the hike started uphill, hiking back to my car was a joy!

Look what was waiting for me:

My baby.

The weather is supposed to be this glorious all week. I'm going to have to do this again (and again, and again, and again).

Oh, wait! Didn't I start this post by talking about my husband's new nickname for me?

Hike-o-path

Yep, he loves me.