I had my 1st ever podcast interview! I was nervous going into it. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I do not love talking about myself and how do you describe art, something so visual over an audio platform? I think I did well. Heck, I felt like I had so much more to say! Guess I’ll have to do another interview sometime soon. :)
Here is the link, let me know what you think:
Let me know what you think.
Well, I can tell you that I do not enjoy eating like "normal" on the weekends. Here it is, Monday and I feel bloated and like I pigged out all weekend. I know that is not the case, but it is how I feel. I did have cake for my daughter's birthday last night and I ate two full meals and a few truffles. And a banana with peanut butter and chocolate. I think this would be considered normal (maybe a tad over normal) and not too unhealthy but I don't like the way I feel.
The biggest issue on the weekends is the social side of eating. Monday - Friday I can get away with not eating dinner. I made my boyfriend feel guilty for eating when I wasn't but other than that there wasn't much of an issue. On the weekends though we like going out to dinner or cooking together and eating together as a family. We like going out to brunch. We like going out with other people and we are foodies. We like trying new places and new dishes. So I am going to have to find a way to make the weekends work.
Yesterday around 11am we went to brunch at The Garden Table on Mass ( 342 Massachusetts ave. Indianapolis, IN 46204 ). If you love good food, you must go! We had about a 30min wait but the people who came in after us were waiting an hour or more. There isn't a great place to wait so if the weather if nice you can wait outside. If the weather is bad (it was a little chilly Sunday) you can stand in the foyer and feel like you are in the way.
It was well worth the wait! The inside of The Garden Table on Mass is beautiful, lots to look at. I feel like even the staff were styled on purpose just for us to look at. There was a lot to pick from, drinks and drinks and more drinks. I had a Matcha Tea Latte and Grant had a Pablo Honey:
My latte was simple and good, it was a good matcha, not the best ever or anything. Grant's drink was fun and complex: pepper honey, basil infused espresso, and milk. It was really good and made me a little jelly.
I would definitely try something else next time.
For my meal I had the Quinoa Chia Pet (Sprouted chia, cashew cheese, parsnip,
winter squash, sunflower pesto, stinging nettle). This was simply amazing. So good!
Quinoa Chia Pet
Grant had the Hot Smoked Salmon (Everything slug, lemon, onion, caper and dill, whipped cream cheese). He kept going on about how good every single ingredient was.
Hot Smoked Salmon
The blueberries were not a part of his order. These came from my daughters brunch and the one thing that I was annoyed about. She ordered the blueberry pancakes. These were in fact blueberry corn muffins. There was noting "pancake" about these. They were yummy BUT to a very very picky 9 year old, she was not impressed. There is no description that went with this item and we would have loved to talk to the server about this and a few other things but 1 - the music was so loud we could not hear each other talk and 2 - the server wasn't very friendly or helpful. My daughter ordered milk and he looked right at her but then acted like he had no idea she had ordered it. He probably could not hear her over the music and that's impressive because she is loud. But other than that it was a lovely experience. I want to go back for dinner.
So, I'm going to have to do something different on the weekends but Monday I'm back to intermittent fasting. I wasn't hungry all morning but I ate anyway because I knew that I would not be eating tonight. I can not wait for my tummy to fill empty again. I thought about fasting all day to clear out all the stuff I ate this weekend but in the end I decided not to and just went back to intermittent fasting.
I had oatmeal with a biscuit and then a banana for breakfast and mid-morning. Lunch was Jimmy Johns veggie on wheat with my own (I grew them myself) sprouts and BBQ chips. I know.... not the healthiest day but I did eat home grown sprouts! That has to count for something. I did not eat anything after 2pm.
When I got home I made a pumpkin soup to take for lunch tomorrow. It's difficult to cook something fresh and then NOT eat it!! I'm not hungry at all so that helps! I did taste it, that's kind of a necessity...... and it was delicious! (see previous pumpkin soup blog for a recipe, I added celery, lentil and quinoa to this one)
I'm still not hungry at all. I hope I will be in the morning.
Tonight's tea is my favorite: maharaja chai oolong tea
I was up late last night and the latter it got, the harder it got. Still not hungry but my mind was focusing more and more on food. I wonder if this will stop. I had tea and a Diet Coke and water.
I woke up Saturday morning not hungry at all. I did weigh myself and I had lost 3.5 pounds this week. That's not normal for me, not at all. And I'm still eating the same amount, I'm just eating it all before 3pm. And I'm drinking lots of water so it's not that!
I had a banana at 11am, Starbucks green tea latte around 1pm and ate dinner at 5pm.
For dinner I threw together this little guy:
The mixture in the pepper was Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice (Low sodium) mixed with an onion that I carmlezed and added a tomato, celery, garlic, and an avocado! Grant said my use of the avocado was genius :). Then I topped it off with pepper jack cheese from Fresh Thyme. It was vegan till I added the cheese. Very yummy!
I did splurge tonight with a banana, scoop of peanut butter and a little chocolate syrup and then later two dark chocolate truffles. I have to say, I don't like the way eating all this food so late has made me feel tonight. I fill very full and I don't enjoy it. I do like the feeling of being empty at night... I'll have to remember this!
Tonight's tea is a pumpkin chai from David's Teas. No sweetener added!
Well, last night was HARD. Not because I was hungry! This is a mind game. My tummy is not growling but my brain is saying stuff like "come on, you could just eat something, whats the big deal?"
I drank 3 cups of hot tea, Harney & Sons Vanilla Comoro Decaffeinated Black Tea with one teaspoon of Splenda. That really helps though I'm not sure that the Splenda is a good idea. I'll ween myself off of the sweetener too (eventually).
I woke up today feeling great! So far I haven't woke up hungry at all. I do not get hungry till 8:30am-ish and I think if I did get hungry at night I would eat a small meal. But so far I haven't been hungry. I have also noticed that the amount of food that fills me up is less. This makes it hard to eat enough during the day. I need to make sure I eat enough calories but I also don't want to eat when I'm not hungry. I could eat higher calorie food but its hard to do when you just eat plants and need to be careful of high calorie vegan junk-food (yes, that is a thing).
I'm tracking everything I eat on the Cronometer app, check it out if you are into healthy food tracking! Today I had 1250 calories. My last "meal" was a Kind bar at 3:05. I'm trying to keep up on my water too.
So now it's 7pm and I am not hungry but I keep thinking about eating. Why? Again, not hungry, tummy is not growling, blood sugar feels perfect, but my brain is all like "what could we make to eat?" WHY??
So I should probably take the dog for a walk........ and make some tea.
Trying to lose weight is hard. I try to eat right and exercise and I'm lucky to drop .2 on the scale. And if I have one bad day, I gain. 7 years ago I gave up meat for health reasons and lost 50pounds. I try to follow a vegan diet but its more like a hardcore vegetarian diet. I've done a lot of reading on nutrition. I have even emailed researchers about their findings. (They don't like being questioned) So, long story short, I was watching an infomercial on Facebook from some bodybuilder guy who wants you to buy his program because he can make you look amazing with all the gains and I noticed something.... he was talking about things that I believe to be fact based on my research that most people don't know about (or better they've heard about but run away screaming with their hands over their ears). One of the things he talked about was intermittent fasting. I've heard about that a little bit but not very much & had not looked into it at but it caught my attention and I'll tell you why. I have been thinking about my diet in the way I eat for a while now. I lost 50 pounds and I eat pretty healthy so it doesn't seem like I should gain weight eating the same food that I ate when I lost weight. When I was younger I was very thin and I only ate dinner most of the time. Now everybody tells you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But is it? Really? I remember a girl I use to work with that was thin and she would just sit there while everybody else was eating lunch. I asked her why she wasn't eating and she said I like eating dinner. I said yeah me too and lunch and breakfast. Now here's the thing, I naturally do not have very much muscle mass. Because of this I do not burn a ton of calories. You need a calorie deficit to lose weight. Let's face it I don't have that many calories to work with in the first place! If I'm on a restricted calorie diet my meals are tiny. So I'm thinking if I only eat two meals a day and split all those calories up among those two meals that's two good size meals!
Now, from what I have read most people stop eating at a certain time in the evening and skip breakfast. I thought about it and talk to my sister about it and you know what? I think skipping dinner would be the better plan for me. There are tons of plans out there that you can read about... (16/8 method, eat stop eat, the worrier diet). I'm looking at this as a lifestyle, not a temporary diet.
For the last year I've really been trying to get my weight under control but also to get healthy. I'm 40 now and it's now or never to get my crap together!
This chart is my weight loss from the last 12 months. The big dip that happened in the early fall, I was doing a few things: I was going to the gym four days a week and because of that I wasn't eating dinner those four days. I loved the way I felt during that time. I loved waking up in the morning and having my stomach feel empty and actually be hungry for breakfast. I wasnt trying to do intermittent fasting, i was just too busy to eat after 4pm. So why not try this again? Only this time I will plan for it, make sure I'm getting everything I need during my eating time and see if I can get the same results, or better!
I started on Tuesday of this week, today, Thursday, is day 3. So far I have stopped eating at 3pm & do not plan to eat again till around 9am the next day. And so far I'm not hungry at night. I want to eat out of habit or boredom but not b/c I'm hungry. You can see by the down turn in my weight that I have corrected the little gain I had going on. I'm planning on doing this Monday-Thursday for now. Then maybe skipping breakfast on Saturday & Sunday. We will see if that changes but that's the plan for now!
Right now, in the evenings, its a mental fight! Me vs. my brain! And so far (3days in) I'm winning!
Happy Birthday Jolean! Please feel free to download these photos. If you click on the photo you can see it full size. If you need a copy of a file in the full file size, let me know.
We went hiking today at McCormick's Creek State Park and after getting home and cleaning up I wanted to make dinner.
Outside wolf cave
We have a bunch of cans of coconut milk and have been looking for ways to use it. I wanted to make a curry with chickpeas but we didn't have chickpeas. We did have black beans. So I jumped on Pinterest & did a search for "coconut milk and black beans". I was surprised by how many recipes I found. There was one with black beans coconut milk and pumpkin purée that looked interesting but I didn't have any of the fresh veggies. The other ingredients looked so interesting so I decided to try it!
I started with one can each of coconut milk, black beans, and pumpkin purée. Put this all in a saucepan over medium high heat. I then added 1/2 tablespoons each of cumin, cinnamon, garlic, and chipotle chile pepper. I ended up adding more of each but that's where I started. Then I put in a 1/4 cup vegetable broth, 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I used about 1/8 cup of maple syrup, it's a kind that was stored in a bourbon barrel. Add a few splashes of hot sauce to tease.
The only fresh vegetable I had was carrots. I graded two carrots and added them in.
I squeezed half a lime in but I really wish I would have used the whole thing.
As I was cooking, Grant and I started talking about cornbread. I thought this would be good poured over cornbread so I wiped some up.
Yummy!
We had pepitas so I sprinkled some on top.
It was fabulous!! Rich, creamy, spicy and just a touch of heat. So good!!
Day five started out with donuts!
These were much better than the donuts on a stick.
I wanted to try them all so this is how I pulled that off :) The glazed were really good. The chocolate with sprinkles were my 2nd fav. They were very thick and heavy.
I spent some time on the back deck reading before we headed out. The weather was absolutely perfect!
We are visiting the lighthouse in Corolla today. Neve ran into one of her friends from school!!
The view from the top!
This is the view from the top of the lighthouse looking north. That is the Atlantic Ocean on the right and Currituck sound on the left.
After the lighthouse we visited Whalehead. This is a restored 1920s hunt club residence. Interesting fact, this is the only building in the Outer Banks with a basement. We took a tour of the home as the girls played along to a scavenger hunt. They really seemed to enjoy it.
Whalehead
We had dinner at Corolla Cantina. It was good, not great. Its a small place. There were a lot of flies that were annoying but our server was really nice. We enjoyed talking to her.
We ended the day at our favorite location, our pool!
Beach day!!!
Grant got up and ran 10miles while we all slept. He ran on the beach so he was able to check it out. At 8am people were already setting up. It was a flat out gorgeous day. We loaded up and got to the beach around 11:30. Our house had beach chairs and a beach umbrella and they were awesome!
Our setup
It's so nice out. Not too hot, nice breeze. Water was freezing! We would go out till we were frozen then sit in the sun to warm up. The waves were awesome. Jumping the waves was fun & the girls had a boogie board to play with. I spent a lot of time laying in the shade reading. It was fabulous!
The girls had a blast.
Headed out to catch her wave!
Molly & Grant jumping waves.
The waves were pretty big. There were people out with actual surfboards. That's fun to watch! I have never seen anyone surf in person. Ocean kayaking looked awesome except when the people would get knocked over by the waves. That's not something I would want to do with Neve but it looked fun.
Fun in the water! Waiting for the big one.
After 4 hours at the beach we headed back to clean up. We had all worked up an appetite! A flying billboard was advertising a place called BuddhaLicious. After checking out the website we decided to try it. Note* The website says they open at 4 PM but we arrived at 5:01 & the door says they open at five.
Appetizer: crispy broccoli
This place was by far the best restaurant we have eaten at so far! The appetizer was delicious! Our entrées were delicious. We will be coming back here before we leave!
Thi vegetarian butternut squash curry
Yummy!!!! creamy yummy goodness
Mieso glazed Salmon and coleslaw
Grant finally had a delicious dinner! The coleslaw was perfect, he said the salmon was cooked perfectly, and the sweet potato that the salmon is atop was delicious!
Kimchi
I thought the Kimchi was yummy but Grant felt it was a little weak. I guess I do not know what it's supposed to taste like.
Happy family!
Tummies full and happy so we let the girls pick them up they wanted to do... And they wanted to go to the park.
Walk on the beach? No Visit a pier? No Walk around the lighthouse? Nope We want to play at a park. .... Kids....
The girls made a friend
And then another beautiful sunset before heading home. This one is courtesy of the golf course in our neighborhood.
Look Dad, sometimes I read real paper books!!
Now movies & snacks ... For me it's Blackberry wine, vegan ice cream and a book.
Tomoroow we are going on an adventure! Good night!!
It was raining this morning. Tropical storm Colin visited last night while we slept. Grant got up early for yoga but the rain kept him off the beach, bummer. He was looking forward to beach yoga. By the time he got home and we got up and ready the rain was long gone and the sun was out!
The town of Duck has a boardwalk that runs 3/4 of a mile, has shops and beautiful views. We wanted to get some local donuts and visit a few shops. After much web-surfing we picked Donutz on a Stick as our donuts to try. We also wanted to check out a little coffee shop/bookstore.
on the Duck Boardwalk, photo by Grant Price
These shops were super cute. Not anything I would want to buy but lots of fun to walk around.
The donuts were OK. They were made to order and very sweet. I wouldn't go back but we can say we ate donuts off a stick.
We enjoyed the views the most!
You would never know that a storm had just passed through! One of my favorite things that happened today was Molly telling us how much she enjoyed going out everyday to do things and explore rather than just sit at the pool all day.
After the Boardwalk, shopping and sugar rush we wanted to get some sun and enjoy the blue sky! We all though chilling poolside for a while was the best way to spend the afternoon.
No one seems to like my hat.........
We played in the water and laid poolside reading for a while then everyone was getting hungry. Donuts for lunch probably wasn't the best idea! So after cleaning up we headed north to Corolla Cantina for dinner.
Veggie Quesadilla and Island Rice Bowl
My Quesadilla was awesome with spinach and black beans. Grants rice bowl was OK. Poor Grant keeps missing the mark on the food this week! We are going to have to find him something good before the weeks up. I know just the place for that! But he is going to have to wait a few days!! The best thing about the Corolla Cantina was our server. She was so excited to meet fellow vegetarians. We talked about what we did and did not eat and why. I think we are going to see if she wants to hang out later this week. :)
After dinner I wanted to go for a walk. There is a nature preserve just north of the restaurant called the Currituck Banks Reserve. AND once again this place is gorgeous!!
This photo is SO my daughter
After a short walk on another Boardwalk with breathtaking views we found ourselves on a little pier overlooking the sound.
I think I could have taken a million photos out there.
Once we got out there we notice there were some men crabbing (crab fishing) and Neve was way more into that than the beauty of the place!
The guys were so nice and let Neve crab with them. She didn't catch anything but she thought she did 20times.
Men crabbing at the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge
My favorite part had to be the sunset. I probably took 200 photos. As Grant said "It keeps changing and getting better!" Here are a ton of my favorite photos of the sunset. I made them thumbnails so that if you wanted to see one in detail just click on it and soak up the beauty!
As you can tell, I could not get enough of the sunset!
Neve was running to catch up to Molly and Grant.
And that was it for our day on the boardwalks. We went back to the house to watch movies and hangout together.
Tomorrow will probably be our big all day beach day!
Today I made espresso for the first time in my life! Grant said "it was interesting" :) he is too kind! I'll do better next time! Now I know how the machine works. It was way watered down b/c the girls were talking to me. I didn't realize that the machine was just dumping water into my espresso till it was too late. So it's kind of the opposite of espresso, it's super water down. lol then, because all of my water got dumped into the espresso I didn't have enough to steam the milk ... next time I got this!
Today we are going south. The girls wanted to spend the day at the beach but it's very cloudy. We are going to explore the town of Duck and Cape Hatteras. We are going to hit two lighthouses.... Can't wait to photograph them!
We thought about driving all the way to Cape Hatteras 1st and then work our way back up visiting places as we went. But it was a 2 hour drive & the girls were getting restless after 30min. So we decided to break up the drive down by stopping at a few of the sights.
Neve was so excited!!
The first stop was the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Neve could not have been more excited!
According to my Fitbit this hill was an 8 flight clim. It felt like more.
It was a cool place.
Sun halo!
We had a beautiful sun halo while we were there.
Group shot!
Neve was really really excited.
Next stop was Bodie Island Light house.
Bodie Island Light House
This place was gorgeous, just like everything in OBX.
We walked along the raised boardwalk to a little pavilion in the water.
Silly selfie!!
Back on the road with about 45min to go, we were all hot & hungry. We decided to look for a place to eat. We were now in the sparsely populated part of the islands. Our food options were limited.
We found a place called Atlantic Coast Cafe in Waves, NC.
Veggie burger from the Atlantic Coast Cafe.
Can you believe they had a veggie burger!? And it was wonderful. Grant had the Crab Cake Rubbin. He's a Rubbin snob so the bread was not on his level but the crab cake itself was good.
Now on to Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
This is where it got really exciting! After getting our beach driving permit (the other beach we drove on did not require a permit) we aired down the tires and headed for the beach!
It's all about the tire pressure!
We had to drive through high water just to get to the beach. We wanted to go to the point at Hatteras but little did we had no idea that was going to be an issue.....
Beach driving! Molly was making a GoPro vid, can't wait to see it!
The Honda got us there! I'll have to upload the GoPro video of us driving in and out later.
I feel like I could film a Honda commercial after today!
So, there is this cool point that the beach comes to and we wanted to go there but I guess the birds called dibs.....
I was so disappointed!! darn birds!!
The girls had so much fun. They had no idea that the birds were being jerks.
I feel like this is what I look like all the time!!
After the long drive home we relaxed in the hot tub and had some fun in the pool. After watching a storm blow by we made cookies and watched movies.
It was a long but super fun day!!
Vacation this year is at the Outer Banks, NC. We rented a house on the water, on the intercostal side.
Home
We started out the day by swimming in our pool. Grant went for a run.
It was too cold for me. I could not get in... Not past my knees anyway. We did find a snake in the water trap. No worries, he was adorable, I picked him up and took him out to the yard.
Then we headed out to explore Corolla ....
Wildlife... Right outside our door!
We wanted to explore Corolla today. We went north, wanted to see what the beach was like and the wildlife refuge.
The beach!
The beach was so nice! And not crowded at all!
Happy girls.... That's what it is all about!
Love!!!
The girls can not wait to spend the day at the beach! That will be tomorrow.... But we wanted to DRIVE on the beach so we headed to the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge.
Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads...
North of Corolla is the 4x4 beach. No roads, 4wheel drive trucks only. There was a car stuck in the sand as soon as we pulled off the road. The guy must have thought his Subaru Legacy could handle it. He was wrong.
Fun fact, to drive on the beach you have to let air out of your tires. 20 pounds of air. Grant said the truck drove so much better after we stopped & adjusted the air in the tires.
Beach traffic
The girls loved it.
Driving a few feet from the sea!
This area was so beautiful! This is where the wild horses live. We didn't see any..... But we will.
Beautiful sand dunes
I can not wait to hike the wildlife refuge! That will be another day.
This place, The Outer Banks, is one photo op after another. Just a beautiful place!
Can't wait to visit this spot at sunset!
After airing the tires back up we headed back. We made a list of items we needed & stopped at a few places to by beach toys & food. We made dinner at home tonight. I tried some local wine.
Just a small glass :)
The girls were worn out! Think we will have a early start tomorrow.
I think I hear the hot tub calling my name.........
This evening Grant and I had dinner with Bob and Patty, his dad and stepmother, at St. Elmo's steakhouse. If you are not familiar St. Elmo's is a historic old restaurant in downtown Indianapolis. They have been around since 1902. I find it funny that they are known for their shrimp cocktail. Maybe shrimp cocktail goes hand-in-hand with steak, I would not know.
Looking at the menu I wasn't sure what I was going to eat. Steak houses normally have wonderful salads so that was my 1st stop on the menu.
What is our obsession with bacon on our salads?
My only real option here was the sliced tomato and onion salad. I just wasn't feeling it so I asked for the spinach salad. Asking for a different salad dressing the waiter told me he just could not imagine that salad with any other salad dressing. So I said ok but what are my options? "No really, that's the dressing it comes with" alright he might not of exactly said that but it was really close. So I said tell me what salad dressings you offer that do not have the meat in them. After he looked at me like I was crazy I had to tell him that I do not eat meat. Sheesh!! So then he said "Well we have a vinaigrette." That was the only option he gave me and I took it.
St. Elmo's spinach salad minus the bacon.
The salad was fabulous. I was very happy with it and as you can tell it was quite large.
For my main course I pretty much only had sides to choose from as there were no pasta options without meat. Grant is lucky, he can eat fish. He is able to walk into any restaurant and eat like a normal person. Not I!
Grant did try to research the farm these animals came from to see how they were treated. He was not able to find adequate information.
After much deliberation I decided to go with the green beans and redskin mashed potatoes. The green beans were OK but the mashed potatoes were to die for!
I did not ask what was in the mashed potatoes.... I didn't want to know. They were so creamy. They probably contain some sort of dairy ... Sigh...
Of course dessert was a necessity.
I realize that none of these options are vegan but it's desert sooooooo....
I really don't understand why anybody would order anything other then chocolate when it's an option. Grant and I decided to split dessert and he did not want the chocolate cake. I never said he was perfect. He wanted the butter cake.
What is better cake? I have no idea but it taste like a cookie.
The cherries were wonderful. The icing was on the plate instead of the cake. It was good. I cannot speak to the icecream as I did not eat any of it. Next time I will veto Grant and we will get chocolate :)
To sum up our visit to St. Elmo's it is a fine dining establishment if you like meat, obviously. If you are vegetarian there is plenty of seafood to choose from. If you are vegan, not so much. But I was happy with my meal. I believe everybody else at the table was satisfied. The company was the most important part of the evening. It was nice to visit with Bob and Patty before they headed back to Florida.
Last weekend Grant and I were childless, we wanted to do something fun that we couldn’t do with the girls. We both have been itching to go on a hike. I suggested it, thinking it would be just a day hike but a LONG day hike. Grant agreed after thinking about it and somehow it became an overnight trip. It was my job to pick the trail. I did some research, I love research and with the few guidelines that Grant gave me I picked Knobstone Trail. Knobstone is the longest trail in Indiana. According to the Indiana DNR website it is a 58mile (or 61miles depending where you look) backcountry hiking trail passing through Clark State Forest, Elk Creek Public Fishing Area, and Jackson-Washington State Forest. It is a “rugged, difficult trail to hike” and I can attest to that!
We wanted to "though hike" (no backtracking) so we took two cars. We parked one at our end point - Spurgeon Hallow and then drove on down to Leota trail head to start and leave the other car. We planned to hike more on Saturday, a few miles less on Sunday. For some reason we though the route we worked out would be around 17 to 18miles. It was 22, but I’ll get to that later.
We set out happy and excited with our backpacks full and ready to go at about 11am from Leota Trail Head. It did not take long to learn that this trail is in fact rugged and difficult. We walked up and down steep hills over and over and over. Truly, I thought I was going to die, this is Indiana people, its flat. NOT here! This is why its state owned land, what the F else can you do with this sadistic landscape! And to highlight the landscape someone thought it was best to climb to the top of EVERY hill. Walk around it? NO! Just walk around the top few feet!? NO WAY! Atop every hill the trials were lined with briers. At the bottom of each hill was a stream. Mostly small, some were bigger, lots of mud and pretty rocks. Some were tortuous! Like the 6foot deep craves that I had to climb out of. Grant scurried across a downed tree but that really freaked me out so I thought I would try the mud walls instead, great plan! I got down into the creek bed but getting up the other side was not happening. The mud would just crumble and slide down if you looked at it much less touch it. So Grant, my hero, took my pack, he took his belt off for me to use as a rope and he pulled me up! Talk about impressive! So after that ordeal we went right back to hiking up another steep hill.
And so it went for all of Saturday. My suggestion before we headed out was to pass SR 56 and camp about a mile in. State regulations require that you camp a mile from any road. So with that in mind I kept on, I told myself that I could make it to SR 56. I must have told myself 100 times that my body was able to do things that my brain couldn't imagine. I kept telling myself that I could make it. I kept waiting for SR56. when we hit 9miles and no SR56 we knew we had to start looking for a camp site. It was getting late, we had till 7:45 (sunset). We had not seen any people on the trail all day. We did see tracks and we made up stories about the people. There was a very small lady and a guy in Vibram five fingers with a dog. That dog was really ticked "lets go for a walk he said.. it will be fun he said". Poor dog. Anyway, the land was beautiful and for early spring it was surprisingly lively as far as plants and wildlife.
So as it got late on Saturday we came across a camp! A person! We didn't see the person but we did see their setup and fire. Because of this we thought we needed to get another mile in before camping. Thank God, at the top of the next hill there was a perfect campsite! I really didn't think I could go any further. We set up camp and Grant made a beautiful fire. I was pretty worthless, I tried to help but I was beat. Sorry Grant!
It rained Saturday night. I really enjoyed the sound of the rain but not the part where I woke up at 2am, it was pouring rain and I had to pee. Also, it was about 28 degrees outside at this point. I was NOT going out in the freezing rain to pee. So I turned over and went back to sleep. The call of nature kept waking me up so around 5am the rain had stopped and I left the tent. It was still really dark but I had my flashlight. Even so I couldn't find the trail leading to a nice "restroom" area that was nearby. So I had to try to take care of business at the edge of camp. I tried and tried AND tried. Nothing. I was cold and mad and sleepy! I wanted to sleep! But my bladder was so full that it was painful. I gave up after about 15min and went back to the tent. Sunrise was around 7:30 so I laid there and waited and tried to fall back to sleep. As soon as the sun was up enough for me to see where I was going I left the tent again and found the bathroom trail that lead away down the back side of the hill, away from camp and the trail. There were tons of down trees making for a perfect private area! Just what I needed!
Sunday morning Grant made another fire and we ate and packed up camp. We were back on the trial around 9am. On the trail just a few feet down from where we camped there were animal prints in the mud and fresh droppings. We are pretty sure that a coyote had been checking us out. I had seen a coyote in a field on the way to our trail head on Saturday but we had not seen anything that big on the trail (at that point anyway).
We went over one more hill and there was SR56! So with that I thought we had 6miles left, WRONG. The next mile marker we saw was 2miles further back than we thought we were! Then we thought we had a mile to the next trail head. We went two miles and nothing... Somehow our 5 or 6mile hike to the car turned into 7miles, no 8, nope 9, WTF 10... and so on. I felt like I was in the twilight zone! In this episode the hikers never reached the end!!! But thank the good Lord above, he answered my prayers and the 2nd day was much easier hiking! There is no way that I could have physically made it 11miles if it would have been like day one! There were some hills the 1st few miles of the day but not as bad. And we seen some deer as we came down the last big hill. I seen 3, running away from us. Just beautiful!
Between SR 56 and Oxley Trail-head there is a timber harvest, it was so very sad. It was like walking through a wasteland. The landscape was stripped with piles of wood lining the trail. This section of the trail was depressing. It really made you think about nature and conservation. To add to the depression there was a deer carcass, makes you think... And I wonder how hard it was for Vibram five fingers' to keep his dog away from it.
The 2nd half of the hike on Sunday was flat and muddy. We were now in the Jackson-Washington State Forest and we were following a river. Now we had fun things like trails with 5 inches of sloppy mud and no way to walk around it to deal with. And we seen people! There was a guy that was just out for a stroll. Then a guy hiking the whole trail, he was just setting out, 50miles left to go. I wonder if he had any idea what the trail was going to be like once he left the park... I wonder if he is still out there. And we passed a nice looking couple, they looked entertaining.. that was it for people. There really wasn't much to tell about for the last few miles, Grant said that it was as boring as a stroll through the neighborhood. Heck, I was fine with that!!
I recommend Knobstone Trail if you enjoy hiking on extremely steep hills with briers, tons of mud in the rainy season and no water in the summer. One thing I did like about the trail were all the campsites. There were so many. It would be fun to park, hike in a mile or two and camp for the night. You feel completely secluded on the trail. There is a plan to extend the trail up to Martinsville and that would give us 150 miles of continues trial. But there are private landowners to deal with so who knows when that will happen.
I wouldn't mind going back for a camp out!
Grant used the GoPro to film us setting up the tent. This was after hiking 11miles (I have on 5 shirts) it was cold!
I miss writing..
