Kayaking with the Manatees

In February Jason and I took a wonderfully relaxing two-week vacation. We got to do many exciting things between our week in South Carolina and our week in Florida, but kayaking with the manatees was one of the highlights of the trip.  (I'll post more about the rest of the trip later).

We went to Crystal River with my mom and our Florida friend, Beth.  We each rented single kayaks from Crystal River Kayak Company.  Mom and Beth rented sit in kayaks and Jason and I opted for sit on top kayaks.  We've been wanting to try out the sit on tops anyway and we ended up loving them so will be purchasing two of the in the near future.

We kayaked through the springs and up to King's Bay. It was a very windy day so we didn't venture too far into the actual bay though you can paddle up to the restaurants on the bay and stop in for lunch before continuing paddling around. The wind made the water very choppy, so staying in the spring areas gave us more chances to see the manatees.

There were a  lot of them there and it was very cool to see them swimming right underneath the kayaks at random intervals.  Once in a while, a big manatee nose would surface right next to us! Most of them were resting in the roped off areas but we still were able to get a good look at them.

We also saw a ton of pipefish, an osprey flying overhead, an eagle and lots of other native birds and fish.  It was a wonderful experience and I'd love to go back on a less windy day and do the 4-hour outing to include lunch in the bay and take my good camera for some better photos.

All photos can be seen here, but my favorites I'll post below.

Dale Hollow Lake Camping Trip

See the entire Dale Hollow photo album

May 17 - 21, 2015 was our annual spring camping vacation.  We had a group of five - Jason and me, Christina & Charlie, and Beth. This year we decided to go to Dale Hollow Lake in Burkesville, Ky since none of us had ever been before.

The day we left Charlie and Christina left a few hours before us.  We met up with Beth so she could follow us since she was driving solo. Upon meeting up with her, we realized her tail lights were not working. So we drove up to Auto Zone to get some parts. Jason spent a couple of hours working with the electrical wiring before they figured out it was all due to a blown fuse in the truck. Problem solved! But alas, our truck, Big Nasty, was leaking anti-freeze and fast.  After a phone call it was determined that Big Nasty should not attempt to make the three hour trip. So after some discussion and contemplating, Jason took the truck and the dogs back home and I continued to the campground with Beth and bunked with her, my gracious hostess, for the week.

Jason & Beth working on Beth's Camper

We stayed in the state park campground with full hookups. Since we were there during the week and school was still in session the park was almost empty. We had one other camper in our loop besides us and we barely saw them the entire week.  The park is very nice with sites arranged in several cul-de-sac loops. This made it so you didn't look directly at the back of your neighbors camper and instead looked into some dense woods, which was a nice change of scenery.

Empty Camping Loop

You can't see the lake from this campground, but it's a short drive away to the marina. We saw a campground on the Tennessee side right at the water's edge that we plan to go back to sometime.  We saw this campground the day that we rented a pontoon boat to go swimming and fishing for the afternoon. We brought lunch with us and had a pair of mallard ducks begging for handouts, which they received. They then proceeded to follow us everywhere we went while on the lake.

Our Feathered Friends

The lake had a ton of islands that you can camp on or just dock up to and go explore. We stuck to the water, but it would be very neat to explore some of the primitive woods out there.  The water was so clear we could easily see our toes and probably a good 15 feet below that while swimming. The water is also a beautiful blue green color, not the muddy brown that a lot of lakes tend to be.

Tiny Island

We didn't see any eagles on the lake but we did see a Green Heron, which was a new sight for me. I've seen plenty of Great Blue Herons, but never a green one.

Another day we decided to do a short hike up to a bluff outlook called Eagle's Nest.  It was a short hike but a very steep hike!  But it was 1000% worth the effort. The view was spectacular and stunning. We stayed up there just looking around for probably close to an hour before we headed back down to the campground.  While we were up there Christina got dive bombed by a brave humming bird and I found an eagle feather, which I kept as a souvenir.

View from Eagle's Nest

On the way back down the hiking trail it occurred to me that there were probably many geocache sites around the area. Sure enough there was one up on the cliff but we were already half way back down the trail so we chose another one near the parking lot. Charlie and I foraged into the woods for a good while and finally found the ammo box inside a fallen tree.  This was the first cache I've found that actually has items to trade out. So we signed the logbook and took a green glow-stick and replaced it with a pink breast cancer cause bracelet.  I also got the last geocache coin that was left in the box (it started out with 50).  There was also a baseball, a miniature frisbee, some pens, business cards and other small trinkets in the cache box.

Geocache Contents

The rest of our time was spent hanging around the campsites and enjoying the perfect weather. We had campfires, music, brews, good food and a great time. There were many banged heads on awning bars, Charlie stuck his tongue on the bug zapper, and beer bonging lessons went around until everyone was a natural. ;)

It was a fantastic trip. The only thing that would have made it better is for Jason to have been able to join us. But now Big Nasty is fixed and we just purchased two kayaks, so our next trip is sure to be just as fun!  Next stop - Taylorsville Lake!

See the entire Dale Hollow photo album

Vacation Rocks!

This is the view from our campsite at our first stop of our camping vacation at Nashville Shores in Hermitage, Tennessee.  This campground overlooks Percy Priest Lake and the view and weather is perfect, especially for May!  More to come later on our trip - it's been an interesting one already!

Red River Gorge

Click here for all trip photos.

This past weekend we made a trip to the Red River Gorge area in Stanton, Kentucky for our friend Mr. Charlie's 40th birthday.  This is the second time we've been to the Gorge in November ( we went for Mr. Charlie's birthday in 2010 also ) and, in the end result,  it did not disappoint.  We stayed at a very nice cabin called Lakewood. The cabin itself was gorgeous, as were the surroundings with all the woods and creek running through the bottom of the property.

The weekend started off with picking up Christina and Charlie at their house and then Beth from her house.  We had a great, slap happy time on the way to the cabin, laughing all the way.  There is never a dull moment with this group, ever!  After many "just around this curve" comments, much joking and laughing, we pulled off the exit and had a quick lunch at Hardee's before going to the local tiny Kroger to get groceries for the weekend.

After lunch and shopping we headed up to the cabin site.  At the head of the road we stopped in to check in and get the keys to the cabin.  There is a whole story to the ten minutes we were there, but all I will say is that there were gassy fumes in the truck cab and step issues at the check in house!  The perfect start to our exciting weekend.

Once we got to the cabin, the only complaint was that the rental site touted the good cell phone service due to a cell phone booster and WiFi.  We did have so-so WiFi - but the cell phone reception was non-existent.  We realize that most people go to these places to "get away from it all", and while we would love to do this, we just can't due to our jobs.  Thus it was very disappointing for our friends to rent this place just for us because it was the only one with cell coverage and WiFi, only to get there and it have zero cell coverage and very spotty WiFi.  To make matter worse, firewood was purchased for a steep price of $20 to be delivered to the cabin.  As the wood was being delivered we were informed that the cell phone booster did not work at all and anyone with Verizon would not get any type of signal (though our AT&T people didn't get a signal either).  On top of that, all of the firewood that was brought in (all 10 pieces of it - for $20 mind you) was wet and would not burn.  Not turning out to be such a good deal, eh?

However, it all worked out in the end.  Jason was able to get an app on his phone that would allow a phone call to get through if there was an emergency.  The fire was a bust that evening due to wet wood, but at least the hot tub was in good working order.  So after a yummy steak and potato dinner the guys did their own thing and the girls went to hang in the hot tub for some good, old fashion girl talk.

The next morning we had a yummy breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits while we waited for Lydia and Ben. to arrive.  We met them up at Kroger and went directly to a hiking trail that led to Hidden Arch.  It was a very nice two mile hike and was beautiful!  On the way back to the cabin we took a short detour to drive through a natural rock tunnel.  It was a tight squeeze for Big Nasty, the F-350, but by pulling in the side mirrors we made it through.

After that we headed back to the cabin where lasagna was prepared for that night's dinner.  Lydia and Ben went in search of dry firewood and came back with a mother-load of great wood for $10.00...and it was dry and burnable!  So we spent the evening on the porch burning our dry wood in the outdoor fireplace.  It was a pretty calm evening - though we did have to make a human ladder at one point to turn off the outdoor ceiling fans since it was quite cold and no light switch seemed to work the fan.  At the end of the night we sang happy birthday to Mr. Charlie, let him blow out his cheesecake candles and one by one drifted off to bed.

It was a fantastic, fun weekend that I will always remember.  And, as always, I got lots of photos. Next year we will replicate the trip, but instead of a cabin rental we will be taking our travel trailers!

Red River Gorge & Natural Bridge

Last weekend we joined C. and C. for a weekend get away to celebrate Mr. C's birthday.  We rented a small, cozy cabin in the Red River Gorge area called the Star Gap.

We relaxed and played cards on Friday and then on Saturday we decided to hike up to Natural Bridge.  What a hike!  We took the "easy" trail and after getting up it we all decided we'd hate to see what the other trails were like.  It was a difficult climb at times, but it was overall fantastic.  The view from on top of Natural Bridge was gorgeous, and a bit scary at the same time with the wind gusts up that high.  We stayed at the top for half an hour or so and then made the hike back down, which went much faster.

Once back at the cabin we took a much needed soak in the hot tub, had another fantastic dinner and vegged for the evening.  It was a great trip and a much needed get away.

All Trip Photos

Our fabulous chefs of the weekend:

Trail to Natural Bridge:

Standing on top of Natural Bridge

The view from Natural Bridge.  We walked over to that cliff as well.

A view down from the cliff. We could see the car from here!

Life Got in the Way!

Wow, it's been a while since I've had a blog entry.  Flunking out of my Project 365 really made my daily posts dwindle!  But, it's not a bad thing.  I would have probably flunked the project anyway with all that is going on.

We just got back from an awesome trip to San Francisco, California a couple of weeks ago.  We went with our good friends Charlie and Christina for a five day adventure.  We were busy the entire time we were there.  We toured around Fisherman's Wharf several times since that's where our hotel was.  We took a ferry boat tour on the bay.  We took an all day Napa Valley wine tasting tour.  And we went to tide pools in Santa Cruz to see the anemones and other sea critters.

Lots of stories came of that trip.  Jason was dubbed "Meskipedia" for all his useless trivia knowledge.  Charlie knocked over a Chinese shrine at a restaurant in Chinatown.  We made a nice bum happy by giving him the rest of our beer before we flew back home.  We saw many strange and entertaining things on the Wharf.  We feared for our lives during the cab drive from the airport to the hotel.  The Pacific tried to murder my D80.  And Jason drove us up one of the big hills of San Francisco before we turned in the rental car.  It was so much fun!  I have over 300 photos, only 100 of which I have sifted through thus far, but what I do have can be seen here.  Check back, I've been trying to add a few a day.

And even more exciting news - we found a house on land that we absolutely love!  I found it purely by chance when checking out the Craig's List For Sale by Owner listings, not expecting to find much.  However I found a gorgeous place on 11 acres not too far from where we live now.  It has a 3100+ square foot log sided cabin right in the center of the property and it's absolutely gorgeous!  Five acres are cleared and five acres are wooded and there is a 3/4 acre pond filled with catfish, bass and bluegill.  We've been looking for this for 10 years or so!

So we went to look at it and loved what we saw.  So we came home and thought about it and put in an offer.  After several phone calls the sellers accepted our offer and the contract was signed yesterday.  Whoo!  Now we just have to get through the inspection and the appraisal and all should be good after that.  So with this news I've begun packing up unneeded things around the house, we've both been fixing minor things that need attention and my brother has been painting all the rooms that need a fresh coat.  If all of this does work out we'll likely be moving around the beginning of July since the sellers asked for 30 days after closing in order to close on their own house purchase.

Lots of excitement ahead!

San Jose, California Trip & Photos

Today ends my week in San Jose, California.  I fly back home tomorrow morning after a very cool week of California sight seeing and an awesome SEO Conference hosted by Search Engine Strategies.  This was the first SEO conference I have attended and it was well worth it!  While a lot of the presentations were entry level, the ones that weren't were awesome!  I've learned a lot that I will be going home and applying to various sites I deal with on a daily basis.

On Monday we arrived with the whole day to go sight seeing.  Luckily for me, the co-worker I came here with used to live in San Jose and knew his way around and all the cool places to go.  Monday we spent the afternoon in San Francisco.  Tuesday evening we went to Santa Cruz to see the tide pools on the ocean front - what a cool place!  And tonight we drove into the Silcon Valley to see the Google complex and Apple corporate headquarters.  I know it's just a bunch of buildings, but it was too cool!

The week has flown by and has been exhausting.  I look forward to getting home to Jason and Portia and my pups, all of whom I have missed a lot!  And I can't wait to come back to California again when I have more time to really sight see and have Jason with me.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the week:

Vacation Photos

Last week I was on vacation and had several photo opportunities.  I meant to post these last week, but my free time got away from me.  So this entry is all photos - enjoy!

Louisville Balloon Glimmer






Louisville Zoo















My Backyard - trying out the hunting blind












Obligatory Blue Photo