Mountain man

I’m not going to be very verbose.

So to pick up where I left off.  On Thursday morning it looked like we might be washed out once again as it was raining hard while I was at the fitness center. Luckily the bad weather broke and we were able to do the two things I hoped, hiking the gorge and playing miniature golf.

This time we hit the south rim of the gorge.  The nearly two days of rain changed the personality of the river running through it.  There was a lot more water and it was flowing at a much faster pace.  Originally I had ideas of getting the permit to climb all the way down to the bottom.  However when we entered the park there was a sign posted that access to the gorge floor was not allowed because of all of the water, bummer.

To get to the south rim trail we had to traverse part of the north rim trail we had hiked before.  The south side had a different feel to it.  Much of the trail was up high in the open as opposed to the north rim where most of your time was spent under the trees.  Evidently the south trail was destroyed in the early 90’s from a tornado and they rebuilt several years afterward.  When we got to the steps leading down to the suspension bridge from the south I HAD to complete them just like I did from the north side.  The north staircase was a total of 610 steps, the south path had even more steps, close to 700 total (350 up and back)  It was not an easy descent and a very challenging climb.  Along the way I passed several groups of people that bit off more than they could chew and were recuperating mid-climb.  I paused at several of the landings on the way back up, but only briefly.  I observed the HOH method and did not touch the railing at all on the way up or down.  By the time I rejoined Nicki and Ali at the top my legs were burning and wobbly.

We had a good time along the way hiking the rest of the trail.  A few times along the way I found a good resting spot for the camera that allowed me to take a few group shots with the timer.  If you are ever in northern Georgia, I highly recommend visiting the Tallulah Gorge.

Later that afternoon, part two of the plan came together as we played a round of miniature golf.  We were the only ones playing so having Nicki wandering around the holes did not pose a problem.  Nicki discovered a fun game.  After we would putt she would run after the golf ball, pick it up and walk off with it.  It was cute at first, it started to annoy me eventually.  We had a close game, I only won by two or three strokes.  I failed to mention my dominance in frisbee golf where I scored a 70 versus Ali’s 101, thank you very much.

If you can believe it or not, we went the entire week without eating out once.  I bought a bunch of stuff at the grocery store that kept us fed.  We had planned to go out at least once but the way the bad weather unfolded, it squashed those plans since our only option would be outdoor dining with the pooch.

Thursday evening we got most of everything packed up for the long 11 hour drive home Friday.  Unfortunately Thursday night was my worst night sleep wise.  Part of the cheap construction of the units was very squeaky floorboards in the unit above us.  The people that were staying there had an annoying habit of walking around every night between 3 and 4 am.  Well unlike the rest of the week where I could fall back asleep after hearing the loud noise, this time I couldn’t.  It probably was the anticipation of the trip home.

We left at a reasonable time, 8 am.  Ali and I both agreed that the perks far outweighed the little annoyances we ran into.  We would definitely come back. Ali said it was the first trip she could remember in a long time where she wasn’t chomping at the bit to get back home.

The drive back went just fine, no big trouble.  The Camry proved to be a very comfortable cruiser, at least for me.  Yea it would be nice to have a bed in the back to lay down on but saving a few hundred on gas eased the pain.  On the way back I averaged over 37 mpg while driving 75-80 mph most of the way, impressive.

We got home around 7 pm.  After unloading the car we ate pizza and caught up on some of the shows that were backed up on Tivo.  Neither of us were particularly looking forward to unpacking.  Friday was our actual anniversary, it’s too bad that it was probably the least enjoyable of the vacation since it was basically just driving.

On Saturday we wasted no time getting sucked back into the abyss of home maintenance.  I told Ali I wanted to do the tractor mowing so I could avoid having to weed whack due to my aching right forearm/elbow (I get a bit closer to things when I mow).  I immediately missed the cool temperatures and low humidity of the Georgia mountains as I was sweating within minutes of being outside.

So I hopped on the mower and had at it.  As I was mowing I started smelling an increasingly strong smell of burning rubber.  Eventually I stopped and took a look down at the deck.  The one belt was smoking a bit from being that hot.  It appeared that the heat was coming from the middle pulley.  I touched the belt and it was burning up, great.  So I dig around under there, cleaning out grass that was wedged around the pulley and manually rotating the blades to see if I felt any unusual resistance which I didn’t.  So I fire the mower back up and cut some more but it doesn’t take long until things smell hot again so I drive the mower up to the garage to pull the mower deck off.

After I pulled the deck out I had to pour water on the center pulley before working on it.  The water instantly evaporated as it hit the metal, it was that hot.  I remove the pulley from the deck and check it out.  It spins freely enough although I could feel that there was some junk in the bearings.  It may just be wearing out.  I took some axle grease and gooped up the bearings.  I put everything back together and was able to finish mowing with out smelling burning rubber.  I’ll have to keep an eye on it.

We had a bunch of seedlings that were ready to go in the garden.  The thing is I still needed more dirt for it.  So I was off to Home Depot to grab 20 bags of dirt and 20 bags of mulch.  The truck was so loaded down that I had to throw three bags of dirt in the cab.  I had three people comment on how much work I had in front of me as I pushed the flat bed loaded to the hilt up to the register. They were right.

Once I got home I immediately started on ripping, dumping and raking the bags of dirt.  Once the dirt was in place Ali was assigned transplanting duty.  She put a bunch of corn, beets and carrot plants in the dirt. I turned my attention to the mulch.  I have almost all of our landscaped beds re-mulched besides the back border of the pool cage.

Later that night I took my sprayer I bought for bleach and used a mixture of water and liquid pool chlorine to spray various areas of the pool cage that were turning green from all of the moisture.  It worked surprisingly well.  The mildew was gone in no time.  I felt bad when I inadvertently sprayed a few frogs with the potent mixture.  They jumped away, hopefully to wipe the chlorine off in the grass.  I felt like a shithead.

Sunday morning I busted ass sweeping the house, doing laundry and running the carpet steamer.  I just wanted a clean floor. 

The Eagles game was a roller coaster.  They started out looking like they would dominate, then they fell flat on their face and allowed 20 unanswered points.  All of a sudden they started playing well and making some big plays.  It was a good thing they did.  Losing that game going into a bye week would have been pretty damn miserable.  There were a TON of last second finishes yesterday. 

On top of the big Eagles win my fantasy team kicked major ass, once again I should have the top point total for the week.  I made some shrewd moves picking up Correl Buckhalter and Steve Breaston, they both came up big for me yesterday.  Even the Cowboys played perfectly.  Tony Romo and Marion Barber scored me big fantasy points while the team lost, a win/win for me.

The Phillies looked over matched last night, well at least Jamie Moyer did.  I have no idea how he won 16 games this year, his stuff looks to be BP level at best.  I can’t believe he is 45 and still pitching.  Being a big left handed pitcher is a blessing, a big part of the reason scouts were interested in me.  I still think the Phils are in good shape to take the series.  The first two games were great. I’ll be watching tonight.