Tuesday, June 30 - Happy Birthday John. We celebrated by hiking the West Rim Trail and enjoying God's wonderful creation of vast canyons and breathtaking overlooks. A bald eagle honored John with an impressive fly-by. A black vulture also flew over, but the effect was not nearly the same. We met a man on the trail who was walking a beautiful collie and talked to him for some time. He came by our campsite to check out our set up and make notes for his future travels. Our hosts also stopped by with a much appreciated card and half a watermellon. That will taste real good on a hot afternoon. We were sitting with them in our campsite when not 50 feet away, we saw a doe who was grazing and not paying much attention to us. We really enjoyed watching her for several minutes. It was warm today, but a breeze made it quite pleasant.
Wednesday, July 1 - We got an early start and drove down off the mountain into Chattanooga. First on our agenda was to get blood tests out of the way at Labcorps. We then walked around a bit and checked the times for the I-Max shows, then sat in the shade and watched people for awhile. We walked down to the river and took the lunch cruise on the Southern Belle Riverboat. It was very nice and we enjoyed the view up and down the river. Next, we really enjoyed the I-Max theater showing of "Under the Sea." It really gives the feeling of being there. John got to return to the Barrier Reef in Australia that he got to visit a few years ago. At dinner time, we went to the Big River Restaurant and expected to be able to enjoy their prime burger like we did last year, but they had discontinued it. Very Disappointing!!! Joan had a regular hamburger that did not match up and John had cajun shrimp tacos that were outstanding. We returned to camp after picking up a few things at the grocery store including Moose Tracks ice cream. We invited our friends Don (who we met on this trip), Jean, & Gary over to share with us.
Thursday, July 2 - After talking to our friend Don for awhile, we hiked the trail from the west rim to the east rim and down to the waterfalls. We met Doug and Debbie, friends who we met here last year on the trail. They had done the long loop that joins the trail that we did. We enjoyed our hike and felt nicely tired when we finished.
Saturday, July 4 - The park here had a catfish rodeo for families. We decided to try to catch them on a fly. It took some experimenting before finding the right combination of a wooley bugger tipped with a piece of Gulp strip. The kids there and we had an absolute blast. Others were throwing their catches in our cooler, so we ended up having to fillet 19 of them for tomorrow's fish fry at our hosts Jean and Gary's. For lunch, we went down to New Salem for their annual BBQ lunch. For $6 you can get a plate of pulled pork, beef, or chicken with two sides and a drink. John got the pulled pork and Joan got the chicken, which was a half-chicken. We were so stuffed, we didn't need to eat supper. It is supposed to storm in the night and tomorrow, so many of the folks here left, including our friends Doug and Debbie. We are headed up to the tennis courts to watch fireworks this evening. We have met some really neat families here this weekend and are enjoying them.
Sunday, July 5 - We had some storms in the night, but no damage and we stayed dry. We stayed close to the camper during the day and had catfish dinner at our host's place (Jean & Gary) with Dick & Pat and Ronnie & Gail. We met Ronnie & Gail at the fishing rodeo and they provided many of the fish. The food was great and the fellowship even better. It looks like more rain coming in the night, so we have decided to stay another day so we can put away dry.
Check out pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/johnjoanW/CloudlandCanyonSP#
Check out last years pictures here at: http://picasaweb.google.com/johnjoanW/CloudlandCanyonStateParkLookoutMtGaJune24July08#
