Fun in the....Snow?

I grew up in Indiana.  Before my sophomore year of high school my parents and I moved to Florida.  At that point I said good-bye to cold winters and grey skies.  I finished high school and got my undergrad in Florida.  I tried graduate school in Ohio, but remembered why I didn't live that far north and moved back south after the first semester.  All this to say, I really enjoy summer and warm weather.  Unfortunately, the winters, even in the south, have been unusually cold the past couple years.  This winter break I'm back up in North Carolina to work.  On my way to my final destination I've stopped in western Carolina to visit a friend.  Not sure why I decided driving my Florida bought truck down a snowed over driveway was a good idea, but thankfully I did manage to get it back up the hill this afternoon.  

There was plenty of snow on the ground from the past couple days of weather.  Today had lighter winds and a bright sunny day.  My friend and I both got new golf discs for Christmas and wanted to try them out, so we headed to the nearest disc golf course to play a few holes in the frigid 30 degrees.  It was a mix of wanting to throw the new discs and just saying we played in the snow.  


One of the most important lessons today is that you should probably leave your white driver in the car if you are playing in the snow.

Night of 1,000 Spiders

During the fall of 2010 my cohort class had a caving/climbing trip.  The caving trip was at Pigeon Mountain in north Georgia.  We spent two days there and went through Petty John's cave twice.  After that part of the trip was over we headed to Sandrock, Alabama to go climbing.  One the second evening of the trip I was scheduled to give a lesson on webbing harnesses.  The day went rather long and I ended up giving my lesson after dark.  I apparently also was giving my lesson during a highly active time for every daddy longleg in northern Alabama.  It started with a couple people having to flick one off every so often and ended with people continually flicking off spiders.  Just standing still I had about a spider a second climbing up my pant legs!  The rest of my class was having the same issues.  It felt like being in the middle of a Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock episode.  After my lesson our professor had a lesson to give and the entire time he had spiders crawling over him.

Anyone else ever have this happen to them?

Follow the Flying Cars

This past week my cohort and I finished our final trip of the semester.  We went coastal kayaking at Little Tybee Island, GA.  The first day was enjoyable.  I had a hard time being "present" because of all the stuff happening these last two weeks of the semester.  Unfortunately, this trip became just another thing on the to-do list.  The weather on the first day was fine, mid 70s, light wind.  That night we knew a cold front was coming and none of us were that thrilled about practicing rescues when the air temperature was in the mid 50s.  The benefit was that the water temperature felt much warmer.  Due to unforeseen events we had to cut our trip by a day.  We ended up doing our last bit of rescue practice right at the beach ramp.  The 20 knot west winds that day made things quite interesting.  When you flipped your kayak to start the rescue there was no time to waste.  You had to start the drill in the middle of the river so that you could get back in your kayak before the winds blew you into the beach, or worse, a boat dock covered in oysters.

On our way home that day we came across a train track with a stationary train.  We went down a couple streets but it looked as if we were going to have to wait it out.  What better thing to do when you are waiting for a train to move then have a dance party?  A bunch of us got out and started dancing beside the van and trailer.  At one point someone looked north up the tracks and exclaimed, "Look! There are flying cars!!" It was dark out so all we saw were headlights. Wouldn't you know, there was an overpass.  We all jumped back into the van and tracked it down.  While it would have been nice to find the overpass sooner, the dance party was still fun.  And yet again, we came back with no pictures from our trip.

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