Cloudland Canyon Camping - November 2008

Our final camping trip of 2008 was at Cloudland Canyon just south of Chattanooga Tennessee. We arrived at dusk which made locating our walk in campsites extremely difficult. After hiking around for about 40 minutes, we realized that most of the sites here had quite a hike and it would make hauling all our gear in difficult. We are comfort campers... air mattresses, coolers and gas stoves are all requirements. We found a nice large site that was a reasonable distance from the parking lot. Instead of the 3 sites we paid for, we all stayed at one spot. (We were not able to determine the location of many of the other sites, much less find 3 close together)

All the sites at cloudland canyon offer privacy, so its not the ideal location for group camping if you want multiple sites together, however since the sites are so large, it is possible for a group to stay on one site and still enjoy privacy.

The best part of this campground was the hiking. On Saturday our group enjoyed a 3 hour hike around the canyon and were able to enjoy some amazing views.

Smokemont Campground in North Carolina

In October we went camping with our friends Jason, Brooke, Phil and Misty. This year we went farther than we have in the past... we drove all the way to the Smokey Mountains and set up camp at Smokemont Campground. We stayed at one of the non RV spots. At smokemont they do not allow you to stay at the nice creekview spots unless you actually have an RV. We were in a tent so we stayed in our designated area, which happened to be close to the bathroom facilities.

We went up to the top of the mountain one day to enjoy the view.

There are many hiking trails near the campground.

Phil and Misty outside the tent.

Brooke and I were having a silly time around the fire.

The girls took the guys animal hats to pose for the picture.

Camping - Doll Mt Campground - Ellijay

We just got home from our first camping trip of 2008.  Six of us stayed at Doll Mt Campground in Ellijay. I have given myself a challenge to document each campsite we visit so it will help me decide which campground to stay at in the future.

When we arrived at the campground, we first took a tour to pick just the right spot.  We decided with great excitement to stay at the walk in camp sites at the very end of the campground. (sites 55-57) This area was perfect. It was secluded, shaded, surrounded by water, and had our three sites fairly close together with a group fire ring in the middle which allowed us to have a central location.  The only downside is this end of the campground only had Vault toilets. The modern facilities with hot showers were almost a mile away.  This ended up working out perfectly, as ended up having the entire area pretty much all to ourselves.  When we go back, we will stay at the same sites again.

Here are some photos:

Forcing the air mattress into the tent.

Having our first drink and relaxing after the unpacking and setting up.

Ooops

Exploring around the lake.

Biking around the park. We didn't get too far, very hilly and hot!

Time to cool off.

We had an old air mattress with a hole in it that we used one last time as a party boat.

Site 57

Group fire ring between site 57 and 56

View toward site 56 and 55
(you can see the tent on site 56, site 55 already packed up the tent,
but it would be on the left side of this picture past the hammock.)

Over 55 Active Adult Community in Blue Ridge | The Oaks at Blue Ridge

I launched a new site this week: www.theoaksblueridge.com. The Oaks at Blue Ridge is a 55 and over low-maintenance gated community. The Oaks is located five minutes from downtown and is walking distance to Tammen Park and the Toccoa River.

The developer has already began the community and quickly found that interested people were asking if he had a website, so he called me. We quickly got the site built and launched, and we will continue to update the site at the community is developed.

Paint Ball

For Philips birthday we decided to get a group together and try Paintball. Of our group of 12, about half of us had done it before and the other half had not. It was a good combination of trying to pelt each other in the head with paintballs. I think everyone left with half dollar size bruises somewhere on their body. Mine was on my leg!

Barenaked Ladies

Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge BNL fan. I attend every concert possible. Rod and I went to the BLAM concert and got fantastic 9th row seats this year, which of course was a great view and a wonderful opportunity for some photos.

Breeders Cup Party

After seeing the live horse race in Kentucky, I gained an interest in horse racing. On November 4th, we had some friends over to watch the Breeders Cup together. I realized many of my friends had already found the fun in horse racing.

Washington DC

Rod was working in DC during October, and I decided to pack my laptop and go with him. I had not been to DC since I was in highschool and it was good to see the city again. While we were there, it happened that some of our friends were traveling through DC on their bikes, so one evening we all got together for dinner.

Bike Trip to Kentucky

We went to Kentucky for a 4 day biking adventure. Over the 4 days I rode just over 100 miles on my bike, experienced my first horse race at Keenland and toured the Woodford Reserve Brewery.

Camping Sleepy Hollow

A group of us went Camping in Helen GA. We had a blast! We played softball, football, rode our bikes into helen, cooked, listened to football and stayed up late talking.