First & Second Day of School

This year we have a child in 3 schools. One in elementary, one in middle school and one in high school. Our morning started at 4:30 a.m. with JP waking up to get ready for seminary which starts at 5:30 a.m. I(AM) take him to early seminary and 2 of his friends in our ward. Then another parent will take him to high school which starts at 7:05 a.m. Next kid to wake up is ME at 6:30 a.m. this is her very important day. She is in KINDERGARTEN. Wow our little princess is all grown up. Her school starts at 8 a.m. You are wondering why does she wakes up so early. This is the answer, because it will give her time to really wake-up and start moving to get ready. My kids got used to waking up late during summer time, now it is time to get their body accustomed to getting up early. ME's 2 days of half-day were exciting. She said she doesn't have all her classmates name memorize but by the end of next week she will be able to know them. JP is going to have a full and busy high school schedule, but he is excited about all his teachers and subjects. He was overwhelmed of how big high school compare to middle school. But on the second day, he manage to find his classes. JA is excited to be back in school. This year she will be walking to school by herself and she is the only one that can sleep in because her school doesn't start until 8:45 a.m.

I am happy that the kids had a wonderful 2 days of school. I am not excited about all the paper works that they all brought home for me to fill out.

ME's First Day of Kindergarten (Half-Day)

TIME TO BE SERIOUS IN MY SCHOOL WORK....COLORING

EXCITED TO RIDE THE SCHOOL BUS....ALL BY MYSELF

WOW!!! THIS IS GOING TO BE AN EXERCISE....LUCKILY IT HAS A HANDLEBAR TO HELP ME WITH EVERY STEPS!!!

I SURVIVED THE BUS RIDE!!! NOW I HAVE TO WATCH MY STEPS OUT OF THE BUS!

Fiery Gizzard and Foster Falls

Fiery Gizzard Trail
For reference, the first 1.2 miles (2.4 mile roundtrip) is what we hiked for the family reunion in 2006. Total DogHole/Fiery Gizzard loop is 9.7 miles.

At 1.5 mile mile, we leave the official Fiery Gizzard trail to take the Doghole Trailloop, which climbs up the bluff and thenfollows this for about 2 miles, were it reconnects to the Fiery Gizzard trail at the Ravenpoint junction near the backpacking campsite.

Doghole Mine-a saltpeter mine so named because only a dog could walk upright into it.


2.7 mile Yellow Pine Cascade-good spring for reloading water before reaching camp (we were trying to minimize hauling water weight.

3.4 mile Werner Point-one of the nice look out point overlooking Fiery Gizzard Gorge.


4.3 mile Ravenpoint campsite (home of enormous spider see other posts.)

Anderson Falls (descend wooden platform to reach base of falls and water for breakfast and morning hiking.)


Trail Notes: Raven Point junction/campsite is the midpoint on the trail and where Doghole Trail reconnects with the Fiery Gizzard trail. Continuing along Fiery Gizzard trail on the bluff 0.2 miles brings you past Anderson Falls and then if you continued on the trail (which we did not do) for another 8 miles it would bring you to Foster Falls trailhead. A halfmile spur (0.9 mile round trip) from the junction takes you out to the end of Ravenpoint. Taking the Fiery Gizzard trail that descend into Fiery Gizzard Gorge returns back to Grundy Forest trailhead where we started.



The spur out to Ravenpoint gives nearly 360 degree view of Fiery Gizzard Gulch. Saw red-tail hawk flying below us. JPD thought a zipline across the gulch would be fun. A several pitch rapple would have saved us some effort...

This tree at Raven point seemed to be growing out of solid rock.


Near the bottom of the descent into Fiery Gizzard Gorge (Maybe the 5.5 mile mark?) after cutting our way through spiderwebs.


Most of the trail in the Gorge consisted of rock-hopping. Good thing our packs were lighter thanks to eating dinner and breakfast already!


Cascade were we ate lunch. Maybe 6.5 mile mark?


Tree near cascade that seemed to be growing out of rock slab.

Street curb falls Maybe 7.1 mile mark?

Water cutting channels in the rock

JPD in the "fruit bowl." 7.8 mile mark? Now the hiking got easy again. Thank goodness, our legs were shot.

Sycamore Falls 8.5 mile mark. What we have been waiting for all day! The chance to swim in the water fall pool beneath the 12 foot falls. SD also jumped from top of falls (which according to sign at trailhead is not permitted, good thing we didn't read it before we started!) For reference this was our final point on family reunion hike.


After finishing our hike, we then drove to the Foster Falls (the other end of the Fiery Gizzard Trail. To through hike this someday we will need to have two cars. That hike is a total of 12.5 miles.) Our original plan was to backpack in the 0.5 miles to the Father Adamz campground, the last campsite at the far end of the Fiery Gizzard Trail, but we were tired and a sign said the campground was full and the next campground was 2.3 miles in along the trail.

So we just hike to the bottom of Foster Falls,

SD swam,


we watched this crazy guy free climb halfway up the falls, then we just hiked into Father Adamz for future reference (it would make a great family camping site, just need to haul the stuff a little ways,) and then we drove home.

Arachnaphobia Fiery Gizzard-style

Spiders Hunting Humans

We were so excited when we got to the Ravenpoint backpacking campsite, because it had an outhouse...


..until we tried to use it.

I was originally thinking this was a brown recluse, but now looking up pictures on the web and comparing to our pictures, it clearly isn't. This thing is large (Remember a toilet seat is probably 3 to 4 inches wide and this baby's legs spanned that easily). Anyone out there with more expertise that can identify it?


I tried to kill it, but it survived one good whack with a stick and then ran and hid. We decided that the standard backpacking call of the wild procedures would suffice for us.

Glowing Blue Lights

So I was sitting in the dark with my headlight on, when I saw a tiny blue light being reflected back at me. Curious, and thinking someone had left some trinket behind, I went over to investigate, but after lifting the leaves away, all I could see was a small spider. Then when I went back to my original position, I realized it was the spider eyes that were reflecting the light. The scary thing was how many more of these little blue lights I saw that night will walking around. Who's woods these are I think I know, their eyes make the forest glow...

Breaking Trail

Then hiking down the arduous descent (thanks goodness we were not ascending) from the Raven point to Fiery Gizzard creek for our return trip, I was breaking thru webs across the trail every couple yards. Finally I picked up long stick and start slashing X's through the air as I walked along. I must have looked quite comical. This helped somewhat, but I still managed to get a couple of spiders dangling in my face from my hat. I was so happy when we started running into groups coming the other direction on the trail, as that cut down on the number of spidey incidences.

Mushroom Hunting in Fiery Gizzard

JPD and I went mushroom hunting along the Fiery Gizzard Trail

We found an enormous variety of mushrooms that thanks to our intimate knowledge of Tennessee flora we were able to identify.

Barstool mushoom-used both to sit on while you dine, as well as dinner for four.

Golfball mushroom- used by weekend hackers to practice their tee shots.


Apple Core mushroom-taste sweet with a delicate fruity overtones, unfortunately highly toxic (believed to be the mushroom used by Snow White's wicked stepmother.)


Space Alien mushroom-very exotic taste, slight metallic, can give diner the sensation that they have been abducted.


Leopard Skin mushroom-has a taste that can only be appreciated by the fashion challenged.


Purple Heart mushroom-said to have restorative properties.


Arrow Mushroom (may be misidentified)-can be used to poison arrow tips.


Yellow Butterfly Mushroom-light and flighty taste with a hint of lemon.


Pineapple Mushroom-a definite tropical fruity taste.


Kidney Bean Mushroom-Children rarely like the taste of this fiborous fungi, but excellent when stewed in chilis and soups. Kiwi Mushroom-fruity and exotic taste with a odd texture.


Yellow Mellow mushroom-a sweet and mellow taste with a slight pop.


Papaya Mushroom-rare and hard to find in the United States, but of so delicious.


Scalloped Potato Mushrooms-always come is packs, a staple of many a large Appalachian family.

Figure 8 mushroom-Eaten by skaters before big competitions, boring, but nourishing.


Orange Hibiscus Mushroom-A tropical delicacy.


Flying Ninja Disc Mushroom-Their incredibly sharp edges allow these shrooms to be used as weapons, but also to add kick to any sushi.


Kissing Ms. Pacman Mushroom-Can be added to soups to increase passion. Should not be used in excess.


Cotton Ball Mushrooms-hundreds of uses, but not for food.

Final Day

On the very last day of our vacation, knowing I had to be off the beach by eight, I finally woke up early. I had meant to do this nearly every morning, but never managed to get out before 9 or 10.(The time zone shift didn't help.) The water was still quite far out, although not as far as the day before. The waves were very mild, so I just did a bit of relaxed boogie boarding/floating. I didn't want to overexert myself anyway, since I was feeling only a bit stronger than the day before and had the kayaking trip coming up. And then came the moment I had been hoping for all week, when the black dorsal fins of dolphins popped up on our own beach at last! They were about 20 yards out from me. They didn’t hang around for more than a few minutes, but itwas a final parting gift of the beach.

I certainly think that it is a different feeling being in the water with the dolphins than watching it on from a boat or shore. Actually physically sharing space with any large animal is always a bit of a humbling experience. Plus in the water, where man is clearly not the dominant animal, it’s such a rush in those first moments when the dorsal fin first pops up out of nowhere nearby in the water (and any of our astute readers will know that a certain dark dorsal fin breaking the water is one the most primeval fears of mine), but also being in the water with these graceful and powerful creatures makes one feel like such a clumsy guest in their territory. This brief encouter was such a nice way to end our stay.

We packed up our hotel belonging and loaded them in the minivan. I swear we had brought nearly 400 pounds of stuff. Not sure what all was in there. We then drove out to the kayaking launch site.

JPD and I went out in a tandem kayak. Sorry there are no pictures. After our last digital camera gave up the ghost mid-way thru a canoeing trip, I am leery of bringing the camera unless I can waterproof it well. Our guide’s full time job was as a history professor at U. South Carolina-Beaufort, so he gave us lots of interesting history tidbits. One of the first things we paddled out to was the wreckage of an old dock that had burned with a large abandoned catamaran sailing ship (the starting point of the fire). JPD and I actually paddled underneath it, it was a bit of a tight fit for my head. After leaving there, we paddled to the shrimp boat docks and our guide told us that all the shrimp boat scenes from the movie Forrest Gump were actually shot around here. (Apparently the Viet Nam scenes were shot a little farther in, and of course the Savannah Georgia scenes were shot nearby at Savannah.)




We then starting see dolphins across the channel near the Pickney Island side, so we started to cross the channel, but in the meantime, we stopped at one of buoys floating in the channel. Our guide then pulled up a crab trap which contained a couple of blue crabs and a large stone crab. (Maybe a foot in diameter.)Our guide told us that it was common practice to remove the large claw of the stone crab for food and then return it back to the wild, because it would then regenerate its claw, thus making a "vegetarian" crab dinner, as no animals had been killed. (I'm sure that some vegans would object to that definition.)

We then continued in our pursuit of the dolphins, but they moved off and we never got really close. So we headed into one of the creeks of Pickney Island and ended up bushwacking kayaking style through a lot of sawgrass in creek/marsh to get over to a shell road that was our only portage. Here we received another history lesson. Turns out that Pickney Island was originally owned by Charles Pickney, signer of the declaration of independence. Originally they raised European cattle, as it turned out these bovine refuse to cross salt water, so they would stay on the island rather than swim across to greener pastures. They could also live off the bountiful sawgrass and the Spanish moss on the palmetto trees. All of the cattle were shipped to the Carribean to feed slaves. After cattle was no longer as profitable, the island became an indigo plantation, as the British Navy had a huge demand for indigo to dye their uniforms. Then came the Revolutionary War and for some reason the British Navy no longer wanted South Carolina indigo. At that point, the island switched to cotton. Eventually the island was abandoned and then finally became a natural wildlife reserve.

After that little history lesson, we hopped back in our boats on the other side of the road and explored the marsh a bit. Mostly because of the low tide, we were bushwacking through the sawgrass again. Coming off the island we saw some large birds, but I have to admit I still can't tell the difference between a egret, an ibis, or wood stork at a distance, even though our guide tried to talk me thru a verbal dichotomous key. We did sneak up on a blue heron, which I was able to ID easily from a distance thanks to their abundance in TN. Then we paddled back across the channel to our dock and we were through.

I think JPD was getting the hang of paddling the kayak by the end and we were able to move pretty quickly. It certainly seems easier to keep a sea kayak tracking where you want to go than a canoe, but its a lot easy to accidentally have your paddles clash.

Sidenote: I felt really bad that we didn't tip our guide. He was friendly and interesting and he apparently was a fill-in for the regular guide. But I hadn't brought any extra cash besides the $50 for the kayaking trip, and I absolutely hate when you find out that tipping is expected (there was a sign at the kayak shack) but you are not prepared for it. (There was no mention on the web-site.) I don't know if its standard practice to tip your captain or guide on paying trips or not, I have never really understood why tipping is expected in some settings and not others. After all, you don't tip at fast food restaurants, but the people there do pretty much as much work as at most fancier restaurants. Requiring employees to make their wages off tipping seems like an underhanded way for business owners to cheat their employees and falsely advertize the actual cost of something. I know that some wait staff make out like gangbusters, and in theory (but not practice) it encourages service employees to be helpful, but it seems to me that if a place offers a service for a price, the entire price should be put upfront and the people who do the actual work should be guaranteed to be compensated from that instead of being at the mercy of the customers. My friend DF tells me there is no tipping in Japan and I think that actually ends up creating a better service and work environment. But enough on that.


AMD and the girls picked us up and we started the long drive home. We had originally planned on staying in Atlanta overnight at our friends home, but we just felt vacationed out. I admit I was starting to feel kind of sick again and the kids were getting on each other nerves, and it just felt like it would be best if we got back home and kind of got back to our normal routine. So we drove home and all slept soundly. (In my case, I pretty much slept all of Sunday since my cold finally hit with full force.)

Day 4

Friday morning brought the best waves of our entire trip, driven by a looming storm coming up the coast. There were consistent four to five foot waves building up about 100 yards out from shore and holding their strength almost all the way in. This was so much bigger than the usual set of waves that there was actually a real surfer out in them, the only one I ever saw who actually surfed. (I know our most astute reader while be asking, why, since learning to surf is a bucket list item, why I didn’t give it a try, but in my defense, they didn’t rent real surfboards on the beach.) But really, thanks to new found speed of the skim board, riding these decent size waves was almost like surfing. Unfortunately for JPD, he was too short to take full advantage of these gift waves, as you still had to be tall enough to launch into them properly way out. Still, he had some nice rides, just for a shorter distance.

At the end of this rather strenuous session, I was wiped out, so much so that I felt like I was coming down with something. We all took a bit of a nap, but this only helped a little bit for me. After waking up, I tried to find a reasonably priced kayaking trip to Pickney Island.that I had promised to take JPD on in place of going parasailing, which was just too expensive. (To even up the deal for AM and the girls, I promised them they could hit the big expensive seafood buffet offered by the hotel.) However, it turned out that the kayaking trips to Pickney Island only went in the mormings, so we had to reserve a time for the next day when we would be checking out of our hotel. Since we weren’t going kayaking, JPD went back out into the waves, while I still tried to recover by sleeping some more. AMD came back in and said that there was a big storm brewing, so I went out to check on JPD.

When I got outside to the beach, and I was shocked at how far away the waterline was. Where in the morning the water had been running up within 5 yards of the more permanent beach structures, now it was probably 150 yards away. The whole underlying structure of beach that gave rise to the complicated waves sets of the previous days lay revealed. Some of this I had begun to surmise. The main key feature was a long shallow trench, one to two feet deep and ten to twenty feet wide that ran somewhat parallel to beach shore about 70 to 80 yards out. This feature clearly underlied my observation that at about 150 yards out, waves would build up and crest, but then die out and then a second set would build up around 60 yards out. Only with the strongest winds, were the bigger waves from 150 yards out able to maintain power sufficiently while crossing the trench to provide good rides across the entire distance and then there was always still a second cresting that provided a nice boost half through the ride.

The storm drove the lifeguards to wave everyone off the beach. I choose to sit by the pool underneath a rubber leaf tree and watch the storm come through while reading a book in the rain. I admit that I was glad for the storm, that I was feeling under the weather, and that we couldn’t go kayaking, because it finally gave me an excuse to simply relax. I guess when it cost as much to stay at a hotel at the beach as it does, I feel like simply sitting around and doing nothing is wrong, and yet that is one of the points of being at the beach and of a vacation. So I feel like the storm was a bit of a gift to me. I resolved to take advantage of it.

After AM and the girls had their big dinner, JPD went back out in the waves, and AM went window shopping at the tourist trap near our hotel. She called to say I should bring the girls because they were having some singing and entertainment for kids. Of course, JA didn’t want to go (I think she spent most of the vacation in the hotel room when she could.) But ME was game. It was a short pleasant walk on the nice ped/bikeway that run all over Hilton Head. ME enjoyed herself while we walked around.

Then I went out and watched JPD boogie boarding. Just sat and didn’t do anything, while the sun set. It was calm and peaceful and majestic, and I was glad I simply let it be. I saved it as one of my Double Arch memories, a name I have been using since the first time I watched a sunset at Double Arch in Arches National Park. While sitting on the ledge under this arch while the sun set, contemplating the many thousands of years the arches had stood there, I had thought to myself, “Here is a memory that if ever I feel to overcome by failure, or the criticisms of naysayers, or the proud and haughty that I will remember this ancient and majestic place and know that it was here for thousand of years before and will still be standing long after all of us are gone, and any human claim to greatness seems utter vanity in comparison." So I have been storing up these Double Arch memories and this sunset on the beach was one of them. Later on, AMD came out and we walked along the beach.