Abundance All Around

There is an abundance of things to celebrate this time of year - - how about the new life that spring brings, break from school-yeay!, how about our health, how about the great life that we all have because of our risen King - - an abundance indeed.

This year, unfortunately during our bad economy, we chose to celebrate in a more economical way.  As much as I wanted to take a big vacation out of country, we chose to stay in.  We spent a little on gas, but well worth the 3+ hours drive to the mountains.  We went to Boone and spent our pre-Spring Break and Easter enjoying the beautiful mountainside along the Lost Cove Creek (appropriately named as you'll read about soon).

Our adventure started out in the middle of the week prior when we prepped all of our snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.  GORP, above, is our favorite trail snack.  This trip, everyone got their own bag to carry because I'm tired of carrying the only snack for all three of us.  Later on, we all took a trip to the outdoor store and picked out our own dehydrated meals.

YUMMY!  Honestly, we do love those dehydrated meals!  Breakfast was the typical oatmeal, hot cocoa, tea, coffee.  With our food prepped and ready to go, we are getting closer to being ready to hit the trails.

We left home the day before since it's such a long drive.  We spent the night in Boone and enjoyed a meal at Chili's.  Not our favorite, but when we were in Okinawa, Chili's was one of a small handful of choices for restaurants.  So, dinner that night did jog back some good memories of Okinawa.  A good night's rest later, and we were off.

We did bring some friends along, too!  This was Shelby's first time going backpacking.  I hope that after this weekend that she'll still want to do this again!

Lost Cove Creek Trail is unlike any trail we've been to.  It was an 8-mile loop that walked along and across the creek the first 2/3 of the route and through Bee Mountain the last 1/3.  We brought along two different maps and write-ups to help us navigate, but the trail was not marked well enough.  We kept missing the junctions because the markers were either pointed only in one direction, but not the other, or the marker was very faint.  On top of that, there were many false trails created because people kept missing the junctions.  Quite frustrating, but despite that, it was a very beautiful and pretty easy route.  We've never done a trail that walked along a creek for that distance.  We loved it and would do it again, but next time, we'll have to help them along with some trail maintenance.

I read in one of the write-ups that we crossed the creek (which was more like a river!) four times. 

Well, after about 5 crossings and 5 times taking off my shoes and putting them back on, Brian says, "There's like 12 crossings."  What????!!!!  

This is what you'll like after crossing the creek I don't know how many times, boots soaking wet, both big toes jammed in the creek and bleeding, tripped on a root, with cut hand, and smacked camera on the ground!  Oh, can't forget to mention that I also dipped the camera in the creek, but just the bottom part.  It's all good.  Despite all that stinkin' craziness, we still happen to squeeze out how lovely and nice this trail was!

Here are some of the beauties of the trail...

There wasn't just Lost Cove Creek at this trail, but also waterfalls!  There were two of them.  One of which is very popular during the summer, Hunt/Fish Falls.  There, you can swim in a couple of it's pools, if you dare jump into the fuhreezing cold water...

We found a great campsite, of course, by the creek.  By 4:30pm, we all took off our footwear, pitched our tents, started dinner, sighed really big, and pulled out the flask of Jaeger!

This trail should've been call Creek Crossing Trail!  Wet, wet, wet!

Of course, the Easter bunny never forgets you, regardless where you're at!

By day 2, on our way down, I think I've taken pictures of just about everything and everyone.  Shelby even called me the photo ninja because everywhere she turned, I was there!  With everyone ahead of me down Bee Mountain, I continued to take pictures of just about anything!  There were still much leaves on the ground from fall.  I gathered mucho pile on my hiking stick, SEE?

On the way home from Boone, as we recapped our awesome weekend, our many blessings--life continued...  quilting had to be done!