The New Classroom!

Well it is official, Julie works in Oak Ridge. We spent half the weekend slaving away on the room and everything went together great! Julie is very excited and happy to be back in her element. Oak Ridge is year round, pays way better, and she has half the students all day. Looks like she is really going to love this place. Kudos to her as well, Oak Ridge is one of the hardest schools to get into for the same before mentioned reasons. Congrats baby! Here are some pics of the new room...

Ramsey Cascades Hike...7/22

Okay now we really know that we love it out here. This past weekend J and I had the pleasure to spend some time in the Great Smoky Mountains. This time we picked a new trail called Ramsey Cascades. This trail is considered a strenuous 8 mile roundtrip hike. This trail made me want to hike every weekend and sell the kayaks...well almost. By far it was one of the most beautiful hikes we have done to date.

Starting off you hike in about a mile and a half before the trail becomes tight and narrow. From that point forward it comes alive. Quite literally it seems and we even began documenting the body parts that all the trees possessed. We found ears, legs, ankles, elbows, a nose, hands, and lungs. All documented in photos. I think we may make a photoshopped version that brings all the parts together!

About two miles into the trail you get into some old growth trees. These giants of the forest were very impressive and majestic. They really made you feel small and honored to be around them. It was great.

The entire time on the trail you meandered around a creek and large river stones that just kept playing the delightful background music of crashing cascading water. Then you get toward the top.

At the top of the trail, four miles in, you come upon the reason for hiking. The cudegra of the hike the giant cascades. It was great to be the first ones there that morning and we even kicked off the shoes to play in the frigid pools. Oh what a hike and a great place to spend Sunday morning.

If you come to Tennessee and want to hike, an aggressive hike, we will take you here. Please feel free to thumb through our album on webshots and let the pictures do the talking.

rt

Cheoah!

Okay so today was a test of my limits! I was talked into running the gem that is the Cheoah today. My fearless leaders, J & D, assured me that I had a slightly good chance of not getting too terribly hurt. That was enough for me and the challenge was accepted.

Let me first say I was extremely shocked at the sheer number of kayakers wanting to make this run today. It was impressive and inspiring. While setting up this morning we even gave a ride to a guy that we later found out was from Claremore and an OSU grad. We didn't hold it against him and he seemed like a great guy.

We then met up with the guys and began our run. Julie opted out today, she's the smart one remember, and volunteered to run shuttle and take the pics along the way. She was also my back-up in case I wanted to pull out. It sure was great to see her smile and thumbs-up at the end of so many rapids. What a great gal!

Anyway, we got on and the run began. The run starts off with what the locals call dull easy stuff and what I call a challenge. There were several swamping rapids that definitely got my attention. To compare it to another run it began like the upper Ocoee. Plenty of willows and some really kickin' rapids.

This style of running and gunning really didn't seem to break for quite some time. As we got farther down the river the rapids seemed to just keep getting bigger. I was quite shocked that I remained mostly upright and in my boat! Once we got to the falls a new level of respect was born.

The entrance rapids to the falls were impressive. J had to stop and ask for directions and I'm glad he did. This rapid required some moves to be made that really tested our abilities. We made it through and then we were ready to pick our lines down the falls. The falls, or the "Big Un" was the single largest drop I have done to date. Julie caught it on film and we had such a great time running it we carried back up to run it again.

After running the falls, the place I thought I would pull out and end my day, I decided to stick with it and continue the run. This proved to be a wise choice and again I managed to stay mostly up-right and in the boat. From the falls down some of the more difficult rapids come up with even more technical lines and pushy water. It was a hoot.

All in all, no swims and only one bruised elbow (next time elbow pads). Great run, great guides and nine miles of crazy whitewater in 2.5 hours! Yeah it was cooking!

Now that the Cheoah is out of my system, I am ready to head back to the Ocoee. Ahh good old Ocoee!

rt

p.s. For the car lovers out there.... We ran into a group of British 7 roadsters on the tail of the dragon. They were out there all day and I swear there must have been at least 50. Incredible.

Julie to Oak Ridge?

Great news that we would like to share with everyone... Julie has been offered a potential position with the Oak Ridge Public School System at their early childhood center. A great public school system and the dream job for Julie. She is very excited and anxious to get started. The school system is still waiting on the approval for funding but they want her to begin some of the normal getting started rituals and seem fairly certain this will happen. Things seem to be coming into line here, now let's find a house!

Congrats baby!!!

Paddle Paddle, Happy Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July to you all. I hope everyone had a great time being with family and friends, kith and kin. Julie and I were able to get a paddle in on the Pigeon where we met two great guys and had a ball. We drove back just in time to grab some dinner, relax a little, then head downtown for the Knoxville fireworks display and concert in the park.

The concert and fireworks were great and we had good times indeed. We do wish we could have been with you all and want you to know that we miss everyone and hope that we get to see you soon!

Looking back a couple of more days to last weekend, yes of course we did the Ocoee. This has become our favorite river ever, gosh! We had a great time with our friends in Georgia who even had us over Saturday night for some food and wine. What a great house! We love paddling with these guys! D really shows us the lines on the Ocoee and has helped us bump up our paddling skills to a new level. He has us doing lines and moves that we really never thought we would do. What a nice guy to boot!

Keep an eye out for a possible trip report from this coming weekend, the Cheoah!!
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/3146/
D has me thinking that I am ready for some of this, we'll see. I'm taking the big boat and an open mind. But I am not afraid to just sit and watch all weekend too! Julie is taking the camera, for insurance purposes!

rt