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
It rained all night long and into the morning. We got up late and had breakfast (eggs, turkey sausage, biscuits, and oatmeal) and Amy G had her breast milk.
Later that day the clouds left and sun came out. Dave and Lori Cooper came out with their baby for the afternoon and we had lunch and then went on a hike/geochaching experience.
We hiked to Peavine Falls and it was flowing great after the rain event the night before. Wow, I discovered how out of shape I have gotten. It is about a 0.8 mile round trip walk to Peavine Falls and I had to stop a bit to rest coming back up the the trail! But, gotta start somewhere to get in shape and be more active!
On the way out (the batteries had died in camera) we found our first geocache with Dave's GPS. It had experienced some rain damage, but it was still fun to look for it. The Cooper's went home and we headed back down the mountain to camp. Right before dark, we started up a nice fire utilizing some kindling from the weekend and some wood chopping.
We had another good dinner (chicken tacos and mexican rice) and then we hung out by the fire. We had a few marshmellows and listened to the Ipod on random. Kuddos to random Ipod play (thanks Jessica). We went to bed shortly thereafter and fell asleep to another movie. The next morning we had breakfast (eggs, turkey sausage, and pancakes) and then broke down camp and left before noon and were home and unloaded by 2:00. We also installed the new levels as we were able to get the trailer completely level on the site Friday.
Weather: 30-35 degrees, windy, sleet, rain, overcast until we left
We backed into our site and were unable to get level because of the height the hitch was set at which kept us from lowering the trailer enough to level her out. We made due with the situation and finished setting up right at dark. We all went to dinner at Chili's and had a good time with some great fajitas, boats, and margaritas! After dinner they dropped us back off at the camper to stay the night to see if it was for us. It was a cold windy and rainy night, which offered us a great opportunity to try out the heater and see how dry and comfy the trailer would be during poor weather times. We sat outside for a while under the canopy and discussed the potential purchase and costs. We then went inside and watched the end of the ballgame and I played around with the camper. During my playing, I accidentally turned off a control switch on the heater unit while putting the cover back on and after a while it started getting cold in the trailer, so I tried to get the heater to work. Wall thermostat would not turn it on? So I went outside in the pouring rain and switched over propane tanks, only to come back in and find no luck! Next, I got out the manuals and finally determined that it was simply a switch behind the cover....Whew! Part of learning something new!
There is obviously a lot to learn with this new activity and my hope is that it will be another good teamwork building activity for our marriage as well as an activity that will get us out more into His creation as well as more active and in shape!!