Life After Christmas

Well we made it through the Christmas rush and a Happy New Year. This will be my first attempt at writing anything in our blog and I think most everyone knows I'm not a big talker so it might be a short one. Unless you want to talk about radio controlled airplanes then I could probably talk your face off.

Christmas break was a nice time for both of us. I had time off between semesters and Mary took vacation time from work so we got to spend a lot of time together over the holiday. We spent some time at my parents house on the 16th to see the extended family on my dad's side, spent Christmas day with Mary's family exchanging gifts and eating Christmas dinner, and to round it out we went to the Denny's new house in Guntersville to see my mom's side of the family the weekend after Christmas. We enjoyed seeing everbody over the Holiday.

In between the family travel we had time to do some other activities as well. Of course we took a number of walks around our neighborhood with Riley in the lead. We had a quick and cold trip to Sloss Furnaces so Mary could try out her new tripod and get some cool pictures (no ghosts to be found). Took a day trip to Horse Pens 40 but it turns out they don't allow dogs in the park? Pretty silly if you ask me but they were very strict about it so we took our outdoor adventure elsewhere. I knew of a pretty cool spot not too far from HP40 where we could do some hiking so off we went about 20 minutes down the road. It's a wildlife management area in Ashville used by hunters, ATVs, etc. but we just used it to hike a while. Our destination was a rock formation called Chimney Rock. I had only been out there once, about 7 years ago on a dirt bike, so I couldn't remember exactly how to get out there or how far it was. Just to be sure I checked with a friend to see if it was a reasonable distance and he said it wasn't more than a mile or two so it sounded like we could do it. With some sketchy trail directions and a packed lunch we started hiking down a logging road toward Chimney Rock. We made a wrong turn or two but continued out on gut feeling and intuition. Getting a little weary and cold we did make it to Chimney rock about 3:45. If you can imagine it, the trail follows along a ridge and ends at the top of a rock bluff in a tear drop shape which is "Chimney Rock" from what I understand. We took a some pictures and rested a minute but since the sun was on it's way down we didn't stay too long. The hike back out took about an hour with no wrong turns which put us at the car before it got real dark and cold. It was a good hike in my opinion and Riley never missed a beat but Mary might have a slightly different opinion. ;)

Mary has started back at work and I have started back at school so we have gotten back into the swing of things even though we got spoiled over the Holiday. I can't wait till longer days when the sun isn't gone by five and we can play outside as we both enjoy.

Until next time,
Shannon & Mary