January 29-February 2, 2009
On Saturday morning we woke up much more refreshed (stress off from being away from town/work for a couple days) and after a nice breakfast, showered, and headed out for our first hike, the 1-1.5 mile round trip to the two waterfalls via the East Rim of the Canyon. The tough part about the hike would be the 400+ stairs and steep descent. I started out with the baby in the Baby Bjourn and Emily with the dogs. The Baby Bjourn is designed so that you can carry the baby on your chest and that made it quite an adjustment walking (especially down hill) as I could not see my feet. But we made it and little Amy slept the whole time. The falls were perfect and flowing nicely. We then faced the tough task of being out of shape and having to climb back up the gorge with baby and doggies. It was a challenge and we needed several breaks but we made it back to the car...all within a two or three hours. 
First waterfall:
On the way to the second waterfall: 
Second waterfall: 
Sunday turned out to be the best and most beautiful day yet. All the campers had left and we were all alone in the campground with the exception of the host. We felt great from the excersize we had gotten in the Canyon, and were ready to go again. Today, we set out to hike the West Rim Trail, a 5+/- mile loop trail. It was fairly level for most of it and was really enjoyable, offering some great views along the way. We hoofed it in order to get back for the Super Bowl as well as to get some good excersize. We made it back in about 2.5 hours. This was fun!
We decided to make a multi-day excursion before Emily had to go back to work and spent the week planning where and when. We thought about the beach or trying to go to the Carolina's or Georgia. In the end we decided that we would prefer just to stay within a few hours of home and have more time at the site than on the road. We choose to go to Cloudland Canyon as it would be an easy pull up a low traffic interstate (I-59) and also would be in the mountains. All reviews suggested that this spot was great! Now we just had to find out when....We watched the weather and it looked like Saturday and Sunday might be okay, but it might be real cold after that. So we decided to go, 1) so we could take it easy the next weekend before she starts work and 2) I was at a good stopping point at work to take a few days.
I left work at 2:00 and we rushed to get everything packed and hooked up and were on the road about 3:30. It was a beautiful day and nice drive with hardly any traffic. We got gas half way there and arrived right at dark. After a setup, which took about an hour (we are getting much more proficient at setting up), we had an old-school dinner of Ramen Noodles. One note is with the cold nights, I did not want to hook up to the water so we filled the freshwater tank and used the water pump for the trip (that system needed to be excersized anyways). We searched through the television channels and found that we had NBC HD which was awesome since the Super Bowl would be on that channel Sunday night! We did not start a fire, so we hung out inside and played Wii.
The next morning we got up and drove to Chattanooga (20-30 minutes away) and visited Camping World for the first time to finally get some necessary supplies: water hose splitter and backup pressure regulator (to replace the ones left at Cheaha), chock block, leveling blocks, 45 degree clean out fitting with spray nozzle, black tank treatment chemicals, hose, Coleman propane lantern, backup mantles, extra propane fuel, and a picnic table cloth. It was a lot of fun and was like camper paradise in there. We left the store and headed back towards Trenton, making a stop at the grocery store to stock up on groceries, before heading back up the mountain to camp. After unloading, organizing, collecting small firewood, and splitting a lot of logs, we decided to start a fire early and get warm and relax. It was a real windy cold afternoon and we enjoyed the fire and music. We cooked chicken and vegetable kabobs on the Coleman propane stove/grill for dinner and relaxed a bit more by the fire before bedtime. 
On Saturday morning we woke up much more refreshed (stress off from being away from town/work for a couple days) and after a nice breakfast, showered, and headed out for our first hike, the 1-1.5 mile round trip to the two waterfalls via the East Rim of the Canyon. The tough part about the hike would be the 400+ stairs and steep descent. I started out with the baby in the Baby Bjourn and Emily with the dogs. The Baby Bjourn is designed so that you can carry the baby on your chest and that made it quite an adjustment walking (especially down hill) as I could not see my feet. But we made it and little Amy slept the whole time. The falls were perfect and flowing nicely. We then faced the tough task of being out of shape and having to climb back up the gorge with baby and doggies. It was a challenge and we needed several breaks but we made it back to the car...all within a two or three hours. First waterfall:On the way to the second waterfall: Second waterfall: We headed back to camp to recover and get a fire started. We had another great meal (chicken fajitas) and we got to watch Star protect the firewood from the grasp of Bojangles. We did have some young campers from some local church or something come take over the sites around us which was kind of a bummer as they were loud, but they were only going to be there one night.
Sunday turned out to be the best and most beautiful day yet. All the campers had left and we were all alone in the campground with the exception of the host. We felt great from the excersize we had gotten in the Canyon, and were ready to go again. Today, we set out to hike the West Rim Trail, a 5+/- mile loop trail. It was fairly level for most of it and was really enjoyable, offering some great views along the way. We hoofed it in order to get back for the Super Bowl as well as to get some good excersize. We made it back in about 2.5 hours. This was fun! We ran the cable out to the fire and set up the tv so we could wacth the game while enjoying the fire and cooking hotdogs on the fire for dinner. It was perfect. After the game, we watched the weather and saw that rain was coming in first thing in the morning, so we decided to pack up everything we could to prepare and not have to do so much in the rain. We put up the awning, outdoor mat, backside bed, loaded up the car with extra firewood, chairs, dirty cloths, bags, etc. We got up and it was raining as expected and during breakfast we got a surprise as the rain turned to sleet then to snow! Worried about icy roads and getting down the mountain we hurried through breakfast and busted tail to load up everything in the pouring snow! Needless to say we made it home fine and in good time to unload, dry out stuff and relax for the rest of the afternoon.
Weather: 20-60 degrees, sunny some, windy some, rain/sleet/snow some
Campground notes: We were at Site #41, the sites were nice and big, bathrooms were nice, at the fire pit we had a 200 plus degree view of woods. I liked that the fire rings were a distance away from the camper (unlike Oak Mountain)
Lessons learned: collecting smaller sticks is still the most important piece to any fire!!!
Things to buy: small step ladder, second water hose, stair carpets
