Still at cloudland canyon and I don’t know if I want to leave.
Of course we have to, or do we?
What do we feel like we have to do in life? A self imposed have vs not actually having a gun to our head and we just feel like we have too.
That’s one of the beauties of travel, there is so much to see in the world. Often, people ask why we don’t travel abroad; to different countries and what not.
One; we travel with our fur baby.
Two; America is beautiful. Georgia alone has over 60 state parks. America has over 6,500 state parks covering 14,000,000 acres of land.
Why travel all around while we don’t even know our own backyard?
Our time to travel abroad will come, but for here and now, traveling America more than scratches the itch.
It etches our beauty into us and changes us, getting out of routines, dropping habits, picking up new ones.
We joke around and say “happy honeymoon” with an ear to ear smile on our face.
It’s funny because we’re not married and typically honey moons happen after marriage.
We almost got wrapped up into the whole marriage thing; I talked to C’s mom, we had an appointment at the jeweler, and everything else that goes into it.
By asking Corie questions it turned out, marriage is stupid and we already live the married lifestyle.
Not stupid but traditional, and we’re the furtherest thing from traditional.
We almost got pressured into marriage. Or maybe I did, and I’m happy (and appreciate) the fact how we went about that whole marriage situation.
We are in the process of getting a power of attorney and will filled out, we just don’t really see the need for marriage. We also want to celebrate milestones. Getting rings for a ten, twenty, thirty year anniversary instead of buying an engagement ring and hoping everything works out.
Almost half the people that get married end up divorced.
Hurricane Helene was approaching us from the south, we’re in the northwest section of Georga and although we weren’t right on path of Helene… we were pretty close.
Should we stay or should we go?
After some talk; we ended up staying, hunkering down in our little abode
And it more then sufficed. The rain didn’t come till later in the day – We had the right gear, made the right calls, and ended up being super happy we stayed.
When we awakened from our slumber we walked to the main overlook about a quarter mile away – “Dorito Chip” distance.
That’s something I’m going to miss here, the short walk to the vast view
After some quality time; I was off for yet another run.
Running is important to me and I’m happy I’ve found this activity that I can jibe with and commit too – its been almost 6 years of running and my legs had to have taken me over 10,000 miles within that time. Incredible to think about and I never would’ve even thought that possible when I first started to get into running.
It emphasizes a true rule for me:
Little actions done everyday lead to big results over time.
The run today consisted of Sittons gulch
I never even heard of a gulch.
A gulch is a narrow, deep valley with steep sides that is usually V-shaped and formed by erosion. Gulches are typically larger than gullies, which are similar but smaller in size. Gulches can have a dry creek bed or an active creek running through them. That’s what Google said anyway.
Sittons gulch definitely had a dry bed this time around
Unfortunate but still immaculately beautiful. There really is something about moutain running.
Maybe it’s the trees producing rich, clean oxygen maybe it’s the climbs…
I don’t know but I love it. I love it very much.
On my way back to camp; I stopped at the interpretive center. Mainly as practice because our next spot, I’ll need to stop in their interpretive center to get a permit. The second reason was to just check it out. I learned I crossed a copper head snake out on the trail yesterday
A big guy, almost 3 feet long. It turns out they’re venomous too, not deadly like a king cobra but still venomous none the less and made my butt pucker both when I saw this beauty and when I learned at the center that they were venomous.
It was pouring rain throughout the entire run but that doesn’t even matter. Once you’re out in the thick of it you get used to it. I feel like that goes with most things, everything seems more crazy from the outside but when you’re in it? It’s just another day at the office.
I got back to the abode, switched into some dry clothes and rain gear, which was prepacked the night before.
That was C’s plan and it went a long way.
At night all of our shit is on the front seat, it’s not hard to get too but in the rain and rummaging through bags just doesn’t equal a fun time. So last night we had all our rain gear out, clothes for after my run, for after my shower, and a dirty pile for clothes that we needed to wash.
They have a washer and dryer here and although hand washing works; there’s something about having the dryer snap the clothes back into shape😭
The rain subsided, an hour workout got done at the playground, and laundry folded.
Now time for some dinner.
Joe DiAndrea 