An Outdoor Attempt

Last week we decided we would get out of the house and go for a "scenic drive" and take an easy hike and a picnic.
I miss the days I lived near to scenic drives, when you could easily drive up the canyon or into the hills and look out over the city lights or rolling fields and castle ruins. Now, we have to travel first on some major highway for MILES and MILES before we are anywhere that feels a little like nowhere.

We travelled to John's Mountain which is up near Tennessee. The country roads are lovely. Unfortunately, our guidebook was not very clear on where to find the trails, and the trails we found were not very well marked or maintained. It was obvious that the trail we chose was not well travelled. Grass and poison ivy grew into the footpath. However, it was nice to be out in the wilderness.

Even though we were a little late for full on flowers, we did see many native hydrangeas and black-eyed Susans among others.

 

We ate our picnic off the back of the car--not exactly what we planned, but we had such a difficult time finding the trails and by the time we reached the second trail there was nowhere else to really sit. The big stones around where we parked were covered with ants!

The second trail was at Pigeon Mountain and there the best of the flowers had passed as well. However, it is more of a rain forest trail with a waterfall at one end, so it was a nice diverse terrain. There wasn't much water falling this time however, so mainly we had views of porous stones and cavelike forms.

We ran into a ton of traffic on the interstate on the way home which I had not anticipated. 

The sorry thing is, my husband, who is not an outdoorsman and who does not like to hike really (hence the "easy hike" scenario) was horrified to find two ticks on his person (though not burrowed in) while we were driving. Then, to make matters worse, we also got chigger bites all over our ankles and shins. So sad. 

I am not sure our going out was worth the effort and consequence.  Being in the woods in the south in the summer is just not really that pleasant. 

Meanwhile, at home, we had this little visitor on our back door. Haha!