Catawba Falls

Hi Mom.

I know it's cold and you probably aren't getting outside much so I thought I would remind you of something.

It was October and we were in Asheville, N.C..  Due to the vagaries of our schedule we found ourselves with something of a free day in the middle of a trip.  We awoke to a lovely early fall day.  Somewhere nearby, the rumor of a waterfall hike beckoned.

We loaded everyone up and drove off in search of the trail head which we found in short order.  Thanks to the guidance of a helpful sign, we walked over the bridge spanning the Catawba River and started off.

It was only a short walk to the trail head and we were ready for adventure.

And we started off in search of our beautiful waterfall.  Of course, we were keeping our eye out for pretty things and places on the way, including whatever fungus Michael found.  The first fork of the trail led us to a picturesque and interesting dead end.

Not to be defeated so easily, you led the backtrack to another crossing point. It was a raging torrent of a river.  The normal crossing stones were inundated with a deluge of water from the recent downpour.  Being of hardy, adventurous stock we didn't let that stop us.  We forded that river and continued on our way.

The path continued alongside the river. We wound our way through the forest with the delightful noise of a rushing stream accompanying our walk.

Again we had to cross the river, or more precisely, a tributary river.  This time we didn't have to take off our shoes. There was a nice little waterfall here and we took the opportunity for a sit and a snack.  It was getting on in the day and we knew there was another set of falls further on but we didn't know if we needed to go up to see it.  I scouted ahead and saw that the next falls were nice and not to far, so we went for it.  Glad we did.

  The trail was arduous but most worthwhile endeavors are.  We pressed on and were rewarded with the upper falls and a lovely pool at which we could rest and contemplate whatever needed contemplation. 

Enough adventure for one day, we turned around and headed back the way we came with a few stops to photograph a few pretty places we missed the first time.

Back across the torrential rapid covered crossing and we made it back to the car in time to return to our temporary home and watch the sunset.

So, I'm sorry that it is cold and miserable right now.  Hopefully this will remind you of warmer and brighter times.  We miss you and we are so happy that you came on the trip with us.  Love you.

Still here.

I know I haven't been updating much lately.  What with the in-laws visiting and the poor weather, we haven't been doing much adventuring and thus, not much to blog about.  I briefly considered blogging more about just general stuff like politics or current events and realized that probably wouldn't be a great idea.  I know there are only a handful of people that read every post and most of them wouldn't stop reading if I offended them politically, but then, what is the point of a political post?  It does no good to tell someone something they already believe.  Besides, I think I have built something of a brand here.  Nothing big, yet, but a consistent idea.  The Adventure Nickel is about travel and adventure and family.  So, political stuff wouldn't really fit. 

I could write about writing.  That seems like it would be appropriate.  Writing goes on here.  However, writing about writing is for those who are successful at writing.  Why listen to yet another random blogger?  Nope, I need some better credentials before I feel comfortable talking much about writing.  And, there hasn't been much writing to talk about really.  I am working my way up to re-writing the beginning of the fiction piece I am working on and I am waiting on some first feedback on the non-fiction thing before I dive back into that.  There are some short, non fiction pieces I am working on, but they will wait a bit. 

What we have been doing is just being a family.  When I am not working, I have been trying to stay away from the computer as much as I can and just focusing on being present, really present, with the family.  I am trying to be more engaged in their world and interjecting just a bit of mine.  We are trying to snuggle together in the RV to stay warm too.  It has been nice.  It's nice to let all of your perceived obligations down for a bit and just be.  Of course, there are still dishes to do, propane to get, things to clean and so on.  And it has been nice to be there for all of that. 

So, rest assured my handful of faithful readers, we are still here.  It is still an adventure, just a quieter one at the moment.  We will be back full steam soon enough.  Heck, I might even put up some more pictures soon.  As a matter of fact, there are some I have been meaning to get up and it seems like we might be creeping up on a good time for them.  Stay tuned. 

Bucket List

I recently achieved something of a milestone.  I turned 40.  I don't want to approach the idea of growing older with dread, but with a sense of opportunity.  I am alive, still reasonably healthy, somewhat sane and very happy.  That being said, it is good to have goals.  If I achieve none of these things, I will still have led an excellent, interesting and exciting life.  But hell, it's only 40.  I still have some years worth of adventure ahead. 

This is the standard bucket list of things I would like to do before I kick the bucket.  I hope this is nowhere near final.  New things should pop up and hell, I might even mark some of these off.  Is this an exciting hint of where the Adventure Nickel might lead?  I hope so. 

So, in no particular order, the list.

1.  Climb a mountain.  Technically I have already done this, but I want more and better.  I want to climb a mountain that requires technical climbing expertise.  I want an alpine mountain experience.  Mt. Rainier, maybe Mt. Hood.  Something along those lines. 

2.  Through hike one of the great American trails: The Appalachian trail, The Pacific Crest Trail, The Continental Divide Trail.

3.  Run a marathon. Perhaps even an ultra or an Olympic distance triathlon.

4. Write a book.  One each of fiction and non fiction.  I don't think I will be satisfied until I consider them to be a good book too.  I don't want some thrown together piece of junk. 

5. Sail a vessel under my own command across either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.

6.  Serenade my beautiful wife in public.  I can't think of anything more terrifying or anyone more worthy of the venture.

7. Get an article or essay published in a magazine.  I can write a book and self publish it.  There is something about the external justification that my work is good enough that it could be published by someone else.  This one is a little sketchy.

8.  Take a photograph that I think is worthy of hanging in a gallery.  Perhaps even sell one.  But I think I would be satisfied by taking a gallery worthy one.  I have come close I think. 

That's it so far.  Feel free to comment and leave your own if you have one.  Again, I reserve the right to change, alter and amend as needed. 

Only 8 items, but they will take some doing. 

Crabtree Falls

I know, I know...we need to get out and do something.

You can tell by the recent posts that we haven't been adventuring much lately.  What's that you say?  There haven't been any recent posts?  That is because we haven't been out adventuring.  I have been working and we have been doing normal things like going to the grocery store and yoga classes and the climbing gym.

Then Sarah showed me her list.  She has compiled a list of things to do while we are here in Richmond.  It is quite thorough and extensive.  We realized that we needed to get cracking if we hoped to even really dent this list.  As we scanned down trying to figure out what to do, a hike appeared.  With waterfalls?  How can we resist?  After all, it is only a two hour drive away.

We drove east past Monticello.  No dear, don't tell the Jeffersons we are passing by, they will insist that we stop in for a visit and we simply haven't the time. Then turned south and wound our way through narrow country lanes to Crabtree Falls.

We were greeted with a warning.

Wikipedia said 28 people, why quibble?

Of course we wouldn't let minor inconveniences like death stand in the way of a good adventure!  Onward!

We walk awkwardly in the face of danger!

The sun was traversing the sky right along the top of the ridge which left us in shade for the majority of the day.  We hiked up along switchbacks that carried us near to, then away from the water.  We could tell we were getting closer to the stream by the crash of water, the colder temperatures and the humid air.  Crabtree Falls isn't just a single waterfall, or even two.  It is a long series of smaller falls interspersed with three or four larger cascades. The cool part about that is that each time you switchback, it takes you to a new segment of the waterfall.

It's been too long since we had a family waterfall picture.

Being a picture nerd, I of course have to try the slow shutter speeds that make water look so cool.  The angle of the sun was not friendly to my efforts, but it was fun anyway. 

Dang sun.  No that isn't a huge laser pointer hitting the bottom left.  I left the huge laser pointer at home.

We hiked up and up.

The lack of foliage made it easier to see the falls, but we couldn't help but wonder how beautiful everything would have looked with the colors of fall or the green growth and flowers of spring.  Can't let a little thing like cold stop us though.  Speaking of cold, you will notice a striking lack of warm weather clothing. We underestimated the cold and suffered a bit for it, but nothing major.  It was colder than we looked.

The first of many long exposure water shots.

Shiny happy people.

Something weird happened on this hike.  I almost don't want to mention it, in case I jinx it or something.

The kids were enjoying it.  Heck, they were leading the way at times.  They even, gasp, seemed eager.  I blame the  mushrooms for Michael.  No, no, I didn't drug him.  Seriously, I wouldn't do that.  He has become quite interested in mushrooms and fungus.  We bought him an Audobon Society Field Guide to Identifying Mushrooms and he dove right in.  I told him that we would see a lot of fungus on our trip and he couldn't wait.  The downside is that I now have a dozen pictures of fungi and slime molds.  Awesome. 

Hey!  Fungus!  Michael taught me the names of a few of these.

Apparently that orange-ey stuff there is Witch's Butter.

Ahhh sunshine, you taunt us so.

Even Max was having fun hopping around on the trail and climbing obstacles.  We reached a nice spot to sit and have a snack.  I took the opportunity to try some pictures in less than awesome lighting.  Oh well. 

Isn't she just adorable?  Oh yeah, kids or something too.

The tree branches looked like spider webs.  Needed a better photographer though.

Awww. sweet Max.  Even Satchel the adventure dog got in on the action.

Shortly after resuming the hike we found this cool little spot where several boulders had fallen together to form a natural shelter with a small passage through the center. The kids, of course, loved it. 

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There it is...sunshine!  Just out of reach.

Does it have the precious?

Eventually we had to get back on the trail.  It was 1.7 miles each way with an elevation gain of just over 1300 feet.  We continued to wind our way through switchbacks and enjoy the view of the various falls. 

I like this one because the water looks like ice.

Adventure dog wanted to lead the way.

I like this one, bad light and all.

As we got closer to the top, the hoped for sunshine continued largely to elude us.  Instead, the wind picked up.  We could see the top though, and it looked sunny.

Almost there!

We reached the top and found this poignant sign.  Kleenex up.

Good dog. 

The conquering heroes!

Cute Mommy snuggles in the cold.  We finally get sun, but also wind.

Michael has to get into the act.

We settled in for more of a snack/lunch.  The view was nice, but of course we couldn't help imagining what it would have been like in a prettier time of year.  The sun was nice, but it was pretty windy.  Still a nice hike and not too strenuous.  We enjoyed ourselves for a few moments and then started back down. 

I can see how dangerous one slip could be.

I am guessing the flag is another sad memorial.

One last waterfall picture on the way down.

Once we reached the bottom, there was a neat little footbridge that used to be the way to the trail.  When they installed the bridge for those newfangled horseless carriages, they kept this one around for the pretty.  And I thank them for it.  A good hike.  We needed that.

Oh yeah, then there was this.

Couldn't they make it fully enclosed?  It gets cold out here you know.

The Near Miss

OK, I promised I would do it and I will.

I was stupid.  Reaaaaallllyyy stupid.  Like, fork in a toaster stupid.  Like pushing the big red button labled DO NOT PUSH stupid.

But I digress.

And I need to one last time before we get into this if you are to understand just....well...here.

http://egad-ybnormal.blogspot.com/2012/07/71312.html

I had just finished the mudder a few days prior and on a day off, I changed out the lines for the power steering system on Flo.The old ones were rubber and I put in the new braided steel lines.  Good upgrade, stopped the power steering fluid leak. 

So, fast forward to the highways of Arkansas and Tennessee.  We had been driving, and pulling the RV, for a couple of days now and I had noticed something.  There was a whine starting when turned sharply or when braking hard.

The Duramax diesel has what is called a hydroboost system.  It uses the hydraulic pressure from the power steering pump to aid with the brakes.  So, since I heard the whine with both systems, it was surely the power steering whine.

The noise grew more pronounced and I had to use more steering and braking effort. That is not a comfortable feeling when driving through mountain roads towing your 15k lb house.  Some stress was building.  By the time we arrived at Cedars of Lebanon, the whine was constant.  Something was pretty wrong.  We parked after much noisy steering in tight spaces.  After we set up, I popped the hood.

The beast within.

Here is where things really started going off the rails.  Again, I don't really have an explanation for this.

Looking around the all-too familiar internals here, there are a few landmarks that are worth noting.

Mr. Master Cylinder fluid reservoir.

The view down the front of the engine.  Hmmm..What is that there at the bottom?

Something familiar here, but let's find that problem.

So I throw open the hood and take a look.  First thing I notice is some dark sludge underneath the master cylinder.  Makes perfect sense because remember, the two systems are connected. So I clean off as much of the sludge as I can, so I can see the leak.  I check the fluid in the master cylinder and it is dirty, but there seems to be enough.  I even draw out some of the fluid and replace it with nice, clean fluid.

By this time I am exhausted and we want to go eat somewhere.  Time to pack it in for the night.  I'll check things out in the morning. 

Fast forward to the next morning.  We pack everything up and get ready to leave.  It is going to be a shorter drive today, but we are all ready and waiting to go.  Besides, the park will be full today and we have to leave.  The government shutdown has pushed all the people out of the national parks and they are now filling up the state parks, like this one.  We need to leave pretty soon. 

I start the truck up and step on the brake.  The noise is worse than ever.  Sarah hears it.  There is no way we can proceed in this condition.  I checked the fluid last night and it was fine.  Damnit.  It must be the power steering pump.  I jump online and do a quick search.  Power steering pumps are available in Nashville, an hour away, and they aren't too expensive.  I am betting I can get it replaced and still get us on the road.  Sarah calls Good Sam and starts looking for other RV parks in the area just in case.  They have a mechanic nearby who can do the work if I can't, but he doesn't work onsite and we would have to get Flo towed to his shop.  Oh yeah, it would be a few days too.  We would then have to get the RV towed to another campground because this one would be full. 

This now really sucks.  I need to find a way to get this fixed soon. The auto parts store in Nashville has a power steering pump, but it has a core charge of over $100.  So I need to pull the old pump off and bring it with me.  I am officially stressed.  Sarah has an emergency contingency plan in place and is waiting to pull the trigger as soon as I say I can't fix it.  To hell with that. 

We go find the campground host's trailer and tell them our problem.  We are informed that we will be leaving by 3pm today either under our own power or by a tow truck.  No questions.  The husband of the husband and wife team knows something about trucks and as soon as he returns from some duty he is off performing, he will stop by and see if he can help.  I am loathe to accept any help, but I can see the wisdom in another set of hands.  Back to the truck. 

I pop open the hood, crank over the engine and hear that terrible whine.  It seems to be coming from here.

Right there.  Lucky me!  That should be easy to get off.

And that looks easy enough to get off.  It is right there up front and on top.  I can do this.  I break out the tools.  I am wrestling with the belt to get it off because I can't reach the belt tensioner with any of my tools.  I figure that I can almost pull the belt off by hand if I plant both feet on the bumper and pull really hard.  Maybe if I just loosen the bolts on the pump, I can shift it enough to get the belt off an save some time.  So I grab a wrench and start loosening the bolts holding the above piece of equipment to the engine. 



Then I notice something weird.

Denso?  That sounds familiar.

Hmmm...Denso.  Back in Santa Fe, a few weeks before we left, Sarah's dad and I replaced the air conditioner compressor on the Honda.  The compressor was made by the same company, with the same little plate on it...Denso. 



That alone should have made me stop.  But no...this crazy train was going too fast by now.  Nothing was stopping me.  I was determined. 

The husband part of the camp host couple shows up and I explain my situation to him, tell him my plan and he agrees that it sounds reasonable.  Of course, he assumes I am not an idiot. I put up a good face until you get to know me. 

So I go back to what I am doing while we make idle chat.  Things are going a little slower now that I am distracted by having this guy around watching.  The pump is not moving like I want it to and I decide that I need to pull off some of the supply lines to get a little more wiggle in it.  The guy is telling me that his wife was crazy to say he knows about trucks because he really doesn't know much of anything. 

I set a pan under the truck to catch any drips and throw a wrench on the lines leading to this pump.

Yep, those right there up top.

About this time, the guy says, "You know, I don't know for sure, but I think you are just about to take your air conditioner compressor off." 

What?  This guy really doesn't know anything about trucks.  Hell, I've worked ...on...this..be...

Wait a minute.

Something isn't right about this.

That symbol is trying to tell me something important.  What could it be?

Denso?  A/C compressor.  It's all coming together now.

WTF?

Why am I about to take the air conditioner compressor off? 

About this time he reaches down and pulls the lid off of this.

I'll be damned, it looks almost like a steering wheel.

And it is empty.  Dry.  Nothing in there. 

"You are out of power steering fluid man." 

I was less than a minute from taking the pressurized supply line off of the air conditioner compressor.  That would have clued me in to my current stupidity, but I like the way he did it better.  Holy Crap! 

I stopped, really stopped, for the first time that morning.  I asked Sarah if she could go to the store in the Honda and pick up some power steering fluid. 

While she was gone I put everything back together.  The camp host shared with me a few times he had done something really stupid, nothing quite on this scale, but I appreciated the sentiment.  Sarah got caught in traffic and it took a while for her to get back.  Plenty of time for me to wonder how I had fallen down this rabbit hole.  I knew this system and just didn't think at all.  Not even a little bit.

She got back and we put the fluid in.  Magically, the whine was gone and we were ready to roll.  I thanked the host profusely and we set off, much later than we wanted, but in pretty good shape all things considered.  I'm still a little tense and not 100% certain of my steering and brakes though. 

Less than five miles down the road and there is a merge lane.  Ahead I can see a truck, obviously laden and laboring to accelerate uphill in the half mile long merge lane.  The van in front of me decides, instead of just continuing on at her current speed (and yes it was a her, no stereotypes today thanks) and easily passing the truck well in advance of any real merge opoprtunity, she decides to slam the brakes and come to a complete stop to wait for the truck. 

This requires a panic stop by me.  The brakes work!  Heart thudding I start to call her an idiot.  I don't though.  I think it will be a while before I call anyone an idiot.