Ramblin Round: An Adventure or Two: 8/24/08

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Tropical Storm Fay Water Spout

This video is of a water spout we witnessed on our beach trip with mamma and pappa laggis - it killed our cabana, but left us unscathed. The trip was really nice - a great way to relax and spend time with the family after 73 days of hiking. We had an amazing time even though the weather was less than desireble the last 2 days.

St George is a little Island off Appalacacola Bay on the panhandle of Florida. We've been going there as a family ever since before I was born (Brian speaking here). I haven't been there in about 5 yrs so it was so nice to make it back.

Favorite Places - #1 Grayson Highlands

We couldnt decide on a #1 favorite place that we walked through on the trail but it is definently between 2 places. The Grayson Highlands was an area near Mt. Rodgers which is the highest peak in Virginia. After you make that climb you descend slightly to the Highlands area. We stayed in a really nice shelter that night on our way to the highlands and had a beautiful view of the sunset. After that the area is comprised of about a 5 or 6 mile stretch through open grasslands at very high elevations (for the east coast) of over 5000 feet. We had beautiful views the entire time of the surrounding mountains. There were large rock outcroppings that we walked over/through along the way including "fat-man squeeze". ALong the edges of the grasslands there were spruce/fur trees that filled the air with an amazing fragrance. Perhaps one of the neatest aspects were the "wild" ponies that were released in order to maintain the grasslands. They were very friendly (most likely from being fed by hikers) and would even approached us as we made our way through that amazing area.

Picture of Ponies

The Shelter where we sletp in the Highlands - we were visited that night by some poines at about 3 am that came up in between the shelter and the picnic table