Memorial Day...

On Thursday I headed out to Raleigh, as usual, for my alternating weekends there...I got there in time to let Jasper out and wait for the rumble of a motorcycle to turn in my direction. Sadly, I was back in the car again before the rumbles came; Jasper hoped in to tag along and off I was to meet up with Jason for a rather fun experience!! When I got to his mom's house, he was already cutting the grass (we decided we would try to surprise her by getting it done before she got home because she had been working and watching grand-kids all day!) Upon my arrival, I was given two alternatives: trim bushes, cut grass. Well, the way I saw it was that either I could massacre the bushes, or massacre the yard- I decided the grass could be fixed easier than the bushes which may have to be uprooted in order to spare the yard ;)

Amazingly enough, my fist time EVER cutting grass didn't turn out too bad and we actually finished with all the yard work and "started dinner" before Jason's mom even got home!!

Now, I do slightly consider myself a pretty dang good cook. I will try to cook just about anything that presents itself as edible; however, it would appear that pizza dough trumps my skillz. the sad part is, the dough had already gone through the bread maker and was just waiting for us to plop it on the pan...without sticking...without over-flouring...ha! Luckily, Sister Edwards did get home before we finished that one because our homemade Hawaiian-style pizza turned out amazing. (So amazing in fact that we ate almost the entire pizza.)

After getting to play with Abilene and Coyer some we headed off to Jason's to be sure he was packed and ready for CAMPING the next day!!! I mean really, what holiday is complete without a camping trip..?

We headed out around 10am the next morning with Jetta packed full: tent, camping chairs, tarps, backpacks, sleeping bags, food (yum!), Jasper, Kat, Wran, Jason, and me! Somehow we actually all managed to fit and were on our way on time. The drive out to the Morganton area could have been long and boring, but with friends along (and a few competitive rounds of the alphabet game) we had a great time hanging out and getting pumped for the weekend.

Knowing that rain was approaching we were a little nervous about what we would face, especially as Jason has camped in terrential downpours before and was not up for a repeat of that. We decided we would try out a new area we found some awesome pictures of online called "Falls on Steeles Creek." We kind of have a thing for waterfalls! So as we got to the mile marker and turned off the highway, following the directions we had, we hit a split. An unmentioned split that apparently alluded our direction writer. As we picked right Jason inputs a "you know, left kind of looks familiar, like a place I have camped before..." Instead of telling him to turn around, we all just seemed to except the right turn as if the left meant nothing and off we went. At first we were getting a little nervous because we saw lots of campsites, but had seen NO cars. I mean how did all those people get there if they don't have cars?! This didn't stop us from venturing on, so on we went. After driving uphill and then back downhill, passing a flooded road, and many other oddities, we finally started thinking hmm...our directions suck. Luckily, we found the Wilson's Creek Visitor Center in the middle of the woods. "Wilson's Creek? But I thought we were trying to camp on Steeles' Creek?" In we go...to find zero help from the woman running this place in the middle of the woods with "no computer" and "superior knowledge" of all the waterfalls in the area. Dumb. Not even close. We point to the waterfall on the map that we think we are looking for and she tells us, "Oh, no. That is actually Upper Creek Falls." Now I don't claim to be a very smart person, but from everything Jason had said about Upper Creek, it didn't seem that is was supposed to be where this lady was telling us it was. Thank goodness for map legends, I mean geez. She did give us some usefull information to keep in mind though: flash flood warnings for the whole area that night. There comes that rain we keep hearing about...

Turning around, we decide to go back and take the left (hm...only 45 minutes later!) As we get back on course, Jason begins recognizing the area as a place he had camped about 5 years before with his dad and also the place that he has told me about many times as having absolutely amazing waterfalls. Me= so pumped!! Well, ironically enough we actually ran into Jason's dad on the way in, so I got to meet him and get the final confirmation that this is the place Jason was thinking of!!

Jason and I learned a little lesson on our last camping trip and decided that even though we weren't exactly sure where we would be camping along the trail, we should hike with our packs and a few other small items so that when we found a place we could leave them and wouldn't have to hike back from the car twice to bring in all of our gear. Packs on; exploring time! We discovered very quickly that the trail was lined with poison ivy, so the boys taught us all about jewelweed.

If you take this and ball it up to get the juices and rub it on yourself, it apparently keeps the oils from the poison ivy from causing a reaction. Jewelweed became like my new best friend! As we continued our hike, it started getting a little late and we we were not finding any of the places our directions were telling us to go in order to get to our amazing falls we wanted to camp at. I'm not sure why we didn't abandon these directions after their first failed attempt, but I guess we were trying to give them the benefit of the doubt! Since we needed to set up camp before the dark set in, the boys left Kat and me on the trail and they ran out in separate directions to try to find a nice camping spot. I swear they were gone for like 30 minutes and what did they have to show for it? Nothing! Time to turn around, we were getting good at this about now. On the way back down the trail we stopped at a fork we had noticed on the way up and went down to explore. what did we find? A campsite! The only problems were that the campers before us had left food so it was gross and it had "itty bitty living space." At this point, we decided we don't really have an option so we drop our packs and sleeping bags and head back to the car to bring up the rest of our gear. On the way back to the car we actually found...a better campsite! Yay! As we made our way back to the car though, we had to pick up the pace because it started thundering. All we could think was "flash flood!" Tent, tarps, chairs, and who knows what else in hand, all four of us take off toward our campsite to beat the rain. Jason and Wran beat Kat and me there so they dropped their stuff and divyed up jobs. When we got there Kat ran up with Wran to grab our gear we had left at the other, less attractive campsite and Jason and I began our scrambling to beat the rain. First a bed of leaves under the tent for water drainage, then an extra top in case the tent bottom lets in water, rain fly next, then tarps on top. By this point Kat and Wran were back with the gear, this got tossed in the tent and they hastily began other set-up.

We were able to get tents and tarps up,

firewood cut and collected (I wish I had a pic of Kat and me sawing away), fire ring built with fire started,

Jasper tagged in case he wandered off,

and dinner started...

...but the rain never came!!

Tired from the adventuring, we decided to for-go s'mores for the night and hit the tent. Up early the next morning, we started with some showers, a water run, and breakfast!!

Brrr...nothing like ice cold mountain water to wake you up!

Good thing Jason has a filter, I would have hated to hike water in

IHOP has some competition ;)

After breakfast, we washed up the dishes and headed to the creek to start our hike upstream to find the falls. Jasper even followed along on the hike, he is quite the adventure dog and only had to be rescued a few times!

So I get accused of babying him...

But his dad gets to do this:

On this one he was definitely stuck though...

We ended up finding some amazing sights along the way...

a cave... swimming holes.... small "falls..."

and just when we thought about turning around, Jason found these:

It ended up being an awesome trip and even though we got a little mixed up on the way back to camp...and hiked barefoot through "trails" for miles, it was all worth the bonding time!