Trip to Lampson Falls, Part 1

After the wood hauling and dog-watching, M. and I left the house and headed to Lampson Falls. It was a nice back-country road drive, complete with...um...birds with babies? M. felt these were quail. I think they look bigger than the few quail I've seen in my life...but I'm sure that quail, like most everything else, come in all shapes and sizes and that my memory of the size of the birds is questionable. Later on we saw turkeys with lots and lots of babies...but I couldn't get a photograph.
So we went to Lampson Falls but M. didn't set us, and our accompanying picnic, up in view of the falls. I was a little confused by this, as I was seeing a number of great spots to sit on a rock and look at the falls and gnaw on a nice hunk of fancy chorizo sausage. I have learned, however, that following M. usually results in a pretty good time, even if, at some points, things seem uncertain. So I put my doubts aside and after a bit more walking on a less than well-maintained path, we arrived at a nice rock by the resulting stream/river of the falls. This was a far more isolated setting than the falls, where a number of children were swimming in its pool and a bunch of dudes were making a fire and camping on a ridge overlooking the pool. Among our foodie treats there was cheese and sausage.
Not to mention grapes, tomato and avocado. The water by our specific rock-place went into a bit of a current swirl and we couldn't help but throw the occasional grape into the water to see it take a very roundabout course in it inevitable trip downstream. I then wondered at human beings' love of throwing things in water.

M. also had the foresight to bring two Hershey's chocolate bars, one of which overheated in the sun and could only be saved by being immersed in the cold-cold water, weighted down with a rock.
A strong gust of wind caused trouble for us at a number of different moments. In this photograph the wind knocked over my sunscreen and M., because she has always been the more industrious of the two of us, is sprinting to go get it.
Success!

There Ain't Nothin' Like A Summer Pig Roast

These are Tennessee photographs, centered properly and everything. Most of these were taken at a cousin's annual (or semi-annual?) summer pig roast. My cousin lives in the valley and there's a cave on his property that goes into the mountain. There's a spring (or maybe creek?) that flows out (or maybe in to) of the cave. People spelunk in the cave. There's one chamber called 'the fat man's squeeze' and another one called 'the mud room'. I have never spelunked. But I'll tell you this, because of the cave and the water, the general vicinity of the cave is always about the same temperature. I think this temperature is 52 degrees, but I could be wrong. Point is that you can go down there in the summer and cool off and in the winter you can warm up a bit.




This is Meow Cat stuck up a tree. She got up there because a friend's dog...we'll call the dog 'raccoon' to protect its true identity...wanted to say hi to her and she wanted none of it.
This is from the pig roast...those deviled eggs were made by yours truly.