Little River Stream Ecology

Narrative coming soon... Unfortunately, there are no pics of the 3 copperheads basking on a pile of rocks in the middle of the river!

Father's Day at Metcalf Bottoms

We continued (restarted) one of my favorite family traditions... Father's Day at Metcalf Bottoms. Huge storms the night before, so it was empty at the picnic area. The only problem was that it put the water up way to high and brisk for the kids to play in. Still, a bad day in the mountains is better than most good days anywhere else.

Indian Boundary

Kick-off weekend for summer break! We headed to Indian Boundary for a late weekend to properly break in the camper (finally!). All the electrical worked great (supppppppper AC) and we had one of the prime campsites... that's what reserving in Feb. will do for you. We camped right on the lake. We could sit in the campsite and watch Bailey and Myers go down to the edge of the lake and fish. One of my favorite things about camping at IB is that if you want to take the canoe out, all you have to do is stand up, walk to the water, pull it in, and go. If we're going to paddle on Little River from home, there's at least an hour (usually two) of prep time getting the car, kayaks, kids, and car shuttles ready. The most exciting part of the weekend was getting to be there for 3 life star landings. Monday morning a girl in the campground had a seizure and had to be lifted out, then in the afternoon there were two wrecks on the Cherohala skyway that required air support.
We also learned a very valuable lesson--before we take Myers camping again, we are going to have to go to the Dollar store and get about 15 bucks worth of knick-knacky activities... water colors, play dough, etc. We were well prepped with big activities, but nothing for the down time. I figured canoeing, biking, hiking, fishing, swimming, etc. would keep everyone happy, but the instant we stopped one activity he was ready for something else. Ah, I envy his stamina.