For the Saturday morning session we went over to the Lowry’s house. We are so happy to be able to continue this tradition with their family. The Sunday afternoon session has another tradition of “spa treatments” as we watch the last session of conference together with just our family. Mom braided Lizzy’s hair:
And then Rachel’s hair:
The girls finger waved Mom’s hair:
This year the girls really gave Dad a “make-over”. It started with Rachel offering Dad back cracking relief:
There has been no proper training for this procedure but he is a willing participant.
While Rachel was doing that Lizzy was preparing the spa treatments:
That’s a lot of applications!
Starting with the lip treatments:
On to the face scrub:
It was not really coming off….
Still scrubbing. . .
Dad is enjoying the next face treatment as evidenced by his smile:
A chocolate rub next (antioxidants of course):
A finishing spray of course:
Still trying to remove the orange scrub from the other treatment:
Did he agree to make-up?
He is brave:
Hair curlers and mascara and he’s still smiling! An eyelash curler!!!
Finally waxing the legs!!
That was crazy fun for the girls and apparently fun for Dad too. Mom will have nothing to do with any of it!
Mom and Dad have been planning and preparing to backpack section hike the Appalachian trail (AT)! They practiced at a local park with a small trail and over 300 stairs. They went up and down the stairs with their packs multiple times because they planned to start their hike at Amicalola Falls that had a climb of over 300 stairs:
Luna came along on one of their trips.
The stairs were a nice challange:
It was early in the morning but was starting to warm up:
We conquered the stairs!Then they went to another trail up the road to add some mileage to their practice hike.
3/15/23
The planned AT backpacking day arrived and they decided to take us on the trip. We stayed at an awesome Airbnb while they hiked. The place had goats!
3/16/23
Mom and dad had a shuttle driver meet them at their car where they planned to hike to over the next two days and then he drove them to the starting point at Amicalola Falls.
They hiked a small trail that lead to the falls:
There was a paved path at the bottom of the falls:
Now it was time to start the first section of the stairs 175 steps:
Still going up!
Halfway there!
More steps!
The final steps!
The steps are done, now to get to the start of the 8.5 mile approach trail which is not even part of the AT. The At starts at the top of Springer mountain and there is no way to get there but to hike!
They made it to the top of Springer Mountain and the start of the Appalachian Trail!
The happy couple!
The first (if you start from the south) white blaze of the AT!
The top of Springer mountain is not their stopping point for the day, they had another six miles to go!Beautiful!
The next blaze was on a tree:
Mom loves to see those white blazes!
They made it back down Springer mountain and headed north along the AT.
Mom has read dozens of books about the AT and Springer Mountain is iconic to her!
There were some easy stream crossings along the way:
No problem!
Mom still likes her bridges.
The plan was to hike to this waterfall:
They were very happy to see this sign!
Long Creek Falls was in sight!
They made it to the waterfall!
They were too tired to really enjoy it. They hiked 8 hours and 14 miles!
They set up their campsite by the stream coming down from the waterfall.
3/17/23
Mom and Dad got up before 5am to try and pack up the tent before the predicted rain, but it rained before they could get all packed up. It was still dark out but they were all packed up so they decided to start their hike:
Rain, wind and fog, not to mention it’s still dark!
They got in three miles before the sun came up:
Foggy all day.Stem flow from the trees due to the rain!
It was lightly raining throughout the day and the hiking was super challenging. Mom and Dad said it was the hardest hike they had ever experienced! They made it back to the car and look who greeted them at the Airbnb:
These goats were crazy!
Most of them were friendly except..is goat like to chase you down and horn you!This guy will horn you if you’re not careful!You had to hold his horns or…Run! Except they can climb on the table!The rest were sweet!They got to feed them and give them animal crackers as treats (provided by the caretakers of the goats).
3/18/23
The next day mom and dad decided they did not want to section hike as planned so they took us out for some adventures. Our first stop was a tiny house open house:
Mom likes the tiny house concept, Dad not so much.
There were several tiny houses to look at.
Then we stopped at some weird roadside thing:
We found out later that it was the hillbilly mud squid from the animated series “Squidbillies” which is an irreverent show that mom would not approve of ! Nice going mom!
And our final stop was the Big Foot Museum!
A replica of course.
Lets go insideand see what evidence they have!
“Real” science:
A reenactment of an “actual” Big Foot attack!
We weren’t all convinced… but it was a nice outing.Time to head back to the Airbnb and then home tomorrow.
