Heading south

Sorry for the delay in posting! Chris and I were out of cell range up at christie's cotage in canada ( and christie kept us very busy with fall olympics). We got into ottawa on friday night and met up with christie at her fabulous city apartment. We drove up to her cottage in quebec near mont tremblant. Saturday we had a delicious pancake breakfast and then hiked up to a beaver dam on the montain (sadly, no beaver sightings). The next day we explored numerous watefalls, oh! And I got to rake some leaves while christie burnt stuff and chris helpd move some firewood.it was awesome! On moday we departed tremblant and headed back to ottawa and had dinner at a very delicious resturant with christie's mom, sue. Sadly we had to leave chrisie on monday morning (only after we hit tim horton's one last time!). on our way out of the city we visited ikea and picked up a few items for the kitchen.

We arrived at chris's aunt and uncles around six on tuesday. The lake (lake winola)' was so cute, very thickly settled, tons of houses, but very pretty. We ended up staying at his cousin's cottage and it was adorable. Chris had lots of fond memories of summers spent there (we even sat on the freezing dock and tied to catch a trout). Ant dot and uncle bob fed us well and gave us the grand tour of the area. Much to my delight, we visited the local farmers market and I bought some wonderful squashes and then visted an orchard where I further satisfied my cravings forall things apple. So here we are, on our way out of pa, i have a bit of a cold, but we are doing well. Sort of ready to be home, but sad to leave our adventures behind.

First snow

Snow!?

Well, we've reached the far north, it's snowing! And we're not even in canada yet! We took nellie out and she seemed to like it. Not far from the border now!

Back on the road

We are now back on the road north after spending a few days in the virginia highlands. We spent two really pretty nights in the Mount Roger area. I really enjoyed that area when I was hiking the appalachain trail back in 92. There were lots of great photo opportunities and we took a lot of pictures. Nellie enjoyed hiking along the trails and she even got to see horses and cows up close.

We are now heading north to pennsylvania and it seems that the peak of color is still north of us. In the mountains we found the best colo4 at about 4000 feet, but it looks like there is still some good color to the north!

continued

Sorry about that, some technical difficulties. Long story shorter, we made camp in about 15 seconds flat (in the rain), made some beans and rice with tofu (!) under the shelter of a big pine tree and crashed for the night. It poured rain last night but my tent kept us dry. This morning we reluctantly got up and out, explored the Toe River area (might be a nice spot to set up a yert someday) tried to find another waterfall but the rain was too bad to get out of the car. At last we decided to head back to pack up our soaking tent and get on the road. So off we go to Virginia! Hopefully tonight will be dry...

Camping in the rain is fun

Okay. Well it's not really fun at all, but sometimes you have to tell yourself that so you don't go driving off a cliff intentionally. To recap, we left georgia yesterday morning, just about the time the rain started to fall. We decided the most important thing to do was to find a dunkin donuts. So, using our sophisticated mapping devices, that's just what we did. That took us through Cleveland TN, where Jeremy used to go to school at Lee Univ. We drove along the Ocoee River which was gorgeous. Chris even thought he recognized some spots from when he hiked the Appalachain Trail back in the day. The weather was not improving, but we decided to seek out a waterfall in the Smokey Mountains National Park. Along the way we went through. Bryson City (very cute) and passes multiple tube vendors for an apparently very lucrative recreational tubing business. Anyway, we got there only to find out dogs were not allowed. So we had to leave. That put us back on the road, now a few hours behind schedule. We attempted to locate a campground closer to where we were, but after driving up an endless mountain road we never found it! So, we continued on to a different site farther east. And, we found it¡852~¡*3~4
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Ocoee river

Ocoee river in HDR captured during our fall trip to Canada, October 2006

Suwannee river

Well we arrived safe and sound at the Suwannee River campsite. Our first comment was how quiet it was! The park is right along the river, beautiful clear spring water feeding the flow not far from where we are! Perhaps the biggest surprise has been Nellie's magnificent behaviour (trying to be canadian here!) we are now cooking some pesto pasta and enjoying some fantastic wine (Earthquake petit syrah, yum!). Tonight they are calling for record low temps, in the 40's! We arelooking forward to it!