Chimney Rock

School starts tomorrow so I should probably finish all the summer stories soon. I'm sure there will be much more to talk about in the coming weeks. I know for sure that there will be more time to myself for putting coherent thoughts together. God bless our public school system.

As part of our big summer road-trip we stopped at Chimney Rock in North Carolina. After a few hours of driving (and what had been nearly a week of driving for Stan and me) it was great to get out and move. I'm a huge fan of hiking even though I don't do it often and have turned into a wimp. I often long for mountains and go into a funk if I don't get my fix a few times a year. Chimney Rock isn't quite hiking, though. This was climbing stairs—lots of them—crowded with most of the office building during a full elevator outage. We had breezes and plenty of beautiful scenery, and a toddler to carry—did I mention this was hard work?

Monkey & Peanut started off the hike a little leery but it didn't take them long to realize that this was going to be worth the effort. Here's a picture of them at the first overlook. (Aren't they gorgeous? It's hard for me to even see the background.)

We hiked on and came to Chimney Rock itself. You can see from the first picture what it looks like. I thought a little too much about the fact that there were 25–50 people standing on a rock jutting out from the side of a mountain so I sat mostly still in the very center of the space. I managed to keep my mouth shut and not ruin the fun for the rest of the fam, which I consider a victory. I did manage to shut down my fear long enough to participate in pictures. In the solo picture, Stan is looking up at the next part of our hike. He looks a little wistful, I think.

Monkey took the picture of Stan and me together. I've got hat hair and we're both squinting. I almost didn't include it but we look happy and that makes it a pretty real representation. To make up for the scruffy parents, take a look at those fabulous girls! Monkey, looking off in the distance, distracted by some beautiful sight. Peanut, looking straight at the camera ready to start up a dialog. Puddin' just delighted to be part of it all. We have a bad history with Christmas cards (I don't think we've managed to get them out once since we've been married) but I'm tempted to get some printed up with this picture. I still won't manage to get them in the mail, though, so they would turn into bookmarks and toddler projects. Instead, I'll just post it here for friends and family (and a few random strangers—hi!) to see. In a few months—when you're counting your holiday cards—please remember this and count us in. Hope your holidays are full of joy. Happy New Year!

We continued up to the next part of the hike and were able to look down on what we had accomplished. That's one of the things that I enjoy about hiking: There are plenty of tangible rewards on the way up, with scenery and endorphins, but there's also instant feedback when you get to the top. Look what I just overcame!

A very nice mother/daughter team took some family pictures for us. The best of the bunch is down near the bottom of the post. Puddin' did not want to smile for the strange lady.

After our climb down [please don't run. watch out for the people climbing up. no trampling, please. remember how hard it was to climb up? so don't run over the climbers.] we took in the waterfall down towards the bottom. There hadn't been too much rain so it was a gentle fall. The great thing about gentle is that without too much flow, it was safe for folks to climb in. Stan took Monkey & Peanut in to go traipsing about in the water while Puddin' and I stayed on dry bridge. I had a great shot lined up with Stan's hand in the falls but a tattooed arm got in the frame and then the camera battery died. The other battery was in Stan's pocket. They splashed and explored, even though the camera wasn't there to record it. It was all going wonderfully until Peanut slipped on a slimy rock and got wet up to her belly button. She squished for some of the rest of the day but we didn't have anywhere nice we needed to go.

From there we went to find some dinner and then off to our hotel. The next day it was back in the van for more road-trip.