Busy and Active!

Okay, I just realized that it has been a month since we last posted anything! Time flew by! Seriously, I had no idea it was this much later in the year. :) We have been keeping our weekends nice and busy doing fun activities and I guess we kept putting off writing on a blog. However, at this very moment, Paul is sick and laying on the couch and I am extremely fatigued (I think my body is fighting his sickness), so even though it is a Saturday afternoon, I finally have a moment to sit and write about our activities in the past month.

Since it has been forever, I can't quite remember the order of events, but here are the things we have done for the past four weekends:

1) We went hiking to some minor waterfall (seriously, it was so minor that it wasn't worth taking pictures of it!) and since it was lame, we kept hiking in the mountains until we got tired. We then turned around and walked back down the same path to get back to our vehicle. As we walked, Paul was ahead of me on the path and walked next to a tree. When he passed the tree, his bag brushed the "tree", which turned out to be the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild! This 4-5 foot snake had been sleeping/resting vertically on the tree within inches of Paul! The snake, now startled, flung itself from the tree...at me! Now, I don't know if the snake was purposely moving towards me or if it was just trying to get away from Paul, but I didn't know if it was poisonous and it just kept coming toward me! I was running backward as fast as I could. Then the snake suddenly ambled lazily into the woods next to the path. It didn't really run away, it just went in the woods and Paul and I stood pretty close to it while looking up the snake in our animal book. It turns out it was an Eastern Racer, which likes to chill out in trees and while aggressive, is not poisonous. WHEW! That was a crazy adventure. After our encounter with the snake, the rest of the hike was full of paranoia looking for more snakes in trees. Seriously, I never knew that snakes could rest on a tree in such a vertical position. I learned something new! Also, it's crazy that the snake decided to rest there between the time we first went by the tree and then when we turned around and came back. Adventure! Wee!

Eastern Racer (snake)

2) We went to Chattooga Belle Farm to pick apples, raspberries, and figs. I found a pamphlet for this farm at our post office and thought it would be fun to pick apples, since we do this every year. I did NOT know that it would be the most beautiful farm I have ever been to! As we picked apples, we stared at the glorious mountains. It was so amazing that we kept stopping after every tree to hold hands and just gape at the glorious natural setting. I can understand why they have weddings there! God's beauty was everywhere!


3) We went on a "Surfin' Safari" and also to a Clemson University football game. Remember when Paul brought me to an awesome food and wine show in Madison? The Surfin' Safari was similar to that. It was a benefit thingy for the Greenville Zoo, and it took place in the Zoo at night. There were almost 60 tables set up throughout the zoo with either wine or food on them for you to sample. It was crazy though, because they gave you a HUGE sample of wine, and you could go back to the tables as much as you wanted. I was ready to be done drinking after 10 tables! Seriously, who can handle more than 6 glasses of wine in one night? NOT this girl! The food was good as well. I wish the animals were more interesting, but really, when it becomes nightfall, you can't see them anymore, so that was kinda disappointing. The food was good, but not comparable to the chef-like quality to the food at the Madison food and wine show. It was still lots of fun! How can endless amounts of food and wine be anything BUT fun?!? Then the next day we went to a Clemson football game. I had never been to a Division One football game, so I was pretty nervous (about the height of the stadium and crowds) and excited. It was awesome! We had a blast. Paul was kind to me and spent a little bit extra money on seats that weren't ridiculously high up. We bought Clemson shirts (I think that officially makes us fit in down here!) and got to witness the longest successful kick in this division (61 yards!). It was a great weekend!

4) We went to Yellow Branch Falls and brought our dog! We were originally going to go to Cedar Creek Falls, but on the way there we missed a road and got stuck going down a narrow gravel road in the wrong direction. In case you didn't know, our dog gets carsick (which is why it took this long to bring her with us). We thought she was better, and maybe she would have made it if we hadn't missed the correct road. Anyway, she barfed in the car and we had to stop and clean it up and walk her around. After cleaning up and realizing the the actual road we had to go on was 6 miles of MORE gravel road (which clearly resulted in a sick dog), I got disheartened and suggested we just go home. We were stopping every few hundred feet to let the dog out because she was about to get sick again. It just wasn't any fun. So we headed back home. We were finally on normal roads again when the dog looked like she was going to be sick again. I hurriedly told Paul to get off the road as soon as he could. He quickly turned into what was called "Yellow Branch Picnic Area". Of course, the dog decided to throw up in the car the moment Paul pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car. *So close!* :( So there we were, cleaning up the car again, and even more discouraged since we still had quite the distance to cover before getting home. That's when we noticed a sign that was mere feet from where we parked: "Yellow Branch Waterfall: 1.4 miles". A miracle! We knew the dog needed some time before trying to go in the car again AND we had wanted to see a waterfall! The only issue was that it was a longer distance than our original waterfall destination, and we had not packed a lunch (the original trip was going to be done by lunch time and we had not planned to stop constantly for the dog). Also, we only had three water bottles. However, we did it anyway with plenty of stops for rest! The dog did a GREAT job. We took her off her leash and she calmly walked the paths in the lead, but did not get so far ahead that we couldn't see her. The waterfall was beautiful and of course, wherever Paul tried to walk, the dog followed! That made for some entertainment (and worry from me). :)

Yellow Branch Falls

Paul captured a salamander!

Achilles - the Majestic Ruler!

So yeah, those are the activities that we have been doing for our weekends. We have been super busy and super happy! :) The downer is that Paul was sick this past week and now has poison ivy (possibly from our Yellow Branch hike) and I might be getting sick as well. Boo! So we have a lazy weekend, but hey, after our last four weekends, I think we can afford a bit of lazy time. :)

~Cris