Walking

A summertime stroll is a nice memory. Need to go see the waterfalls in DuPont Forest again soon.

Birthday visitor

Russ remembered how to rock hop into the middle of the Little River

Sad feelings today.  A visit from one of my sons was short, sweet, and oh so busy and full of love.  Now he's driving fast along the highway back toward his own life, and I'm so glad he had a chance to step into mine for a few days.  There were moments I knew he was texting with his wife or kids, and I thought how he must need to stay connected to them while here.  I didn't mind at all.  It would have been nice if they could have visited too, but the kids are in school still.  I did love hearing about their lives. Maybe over a vacation I can see them.

A rather strange panorama with Looking Glass Falls and Russ taking it's photo!

I'll share a few of my photos here today...more as I enjoy remembering my "late birthday present day with my son."

I don't know the reason that arm is extended...?

Coming back through the rhododendron thicket was a bit more tricky than just jumping along rocks.

The following are more or less private notes for myself. (I extended my own day, being out and about for more hours than I had previously.  Of course I came home and collapsed into a 2 hour nap.  But afterward I did stay up for my regular evening pursuits.  You don't really care about all this, but this is also my journal here, so I keep track of what my health is doing.  Goddess knows the doctors don't.)

And thus is the life of a 75 year old...grateful for so much, but aware of how my life now revolves somewhat around the medical conditions that I'm dealing with, and will the rest of my lifetime!  My dear doctor shrugged his shoulders about several of my questions.  Apparently the experts don't know that much. He did say I wouldn't get any better with bronchiectasis.  But he had no new options available for me either.  Come back in 6 months.  But really why?

Waterfall fun

I thought I might wade in the water, which I did before (mmm, how long ago?)

that strange log (center, leaning up on rocks with all the knobs on it) was here the last time I was...

Helen Bell is a dear friend who I take day trips with  often

The plunge pool isn't very deep, but is very rocky

And then there are the rocks that must be climbed going down, and again coming back up.

I'm not old enough to know how to do that...climb back up.  So I kind of stopped halfway down and scooted around on my behind till the rocks were more easy to climb up on.

Waterfalls of DuPont State Forest

The Little River provides beautiful scenery for many of the trails and falls in DuPont State Forest.

From  downtown Brevard NC, we traveled on a new route to me, to find waterfalls that I'd visited several years ago coming from the other direction.  Could we do it?

The map on the wall in downtown Brevard shows a relatively straight road over rough terrain, obviously misleading! It climbed in elevation and did enough switch-backing that some motorcycles were very happy when we pulled over to let everyone behind us pass our "slow moving vehicle."
I was relieved since we were enjoying looking at the little river by the highway.

We followed one direct road which turned into a gravel road (for the next 5 miles) so we turned around and went looking for the visitor's center on another road.  Instead we found a large parking lot for the High Falls trail, and a large building named for someone (sorry, I don't remember who that was) and only by process of elimination we figured it must have been the Visitor's Center.

By then we went on down the second road which went directly to Hooker Falls, where we found the shorter and easier trail that we were interested in.  It had been improved since I was there about 4-5 years ago. And a new pedestrian bridge leads across the Little River to help hikers go to the Triple Falls Trail.

Going down a gravel path to Hooker Falls is a gentle slope along the river.  I was happy to see how dry and warm the going was, considering there had been heavy rain all day Monday (this was Wednesday.)

There was plenty of white water, moving pretty fast. But the banks didn't show that it was at all high from the streambed.

Hooker Falls.

Yes there is a young barefoot man in yellow swim trunks standing at the foot of the falls on one of the flat shelves of rock.

He went twice under part of the falls, but came out in a few minutes.  There are quite a few shelves of flat rock, mostly under water.  We left before he did!

After enjoying seeing some dogwood in bloom (it was 80 degrees that afternoon) I finally found a patch of Galax at the base of this tree, which I remembered seeing on my first visit.

 It's illegal to cut or dig it up in this area.

We stood on the pedestrian bridge and looked upstream where the road crosses the river where there's a little island.

Looking downstream from the bridge we agreed this wasn't a river to go tubing down.  A bit too fast and bumpy!

Today's quote:

Are the stars too distant? Pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.

Margaret Fuller

Water flowing along

Someone mentioned the North Carolina waterfalls the other day.  There are some really wonderful ones, and I'm living within an hour of most of them.

I also like the beauty of a leaf floating in the waters over near the sides of the stream.

The other thing that happens around waterfalls is the amount of ozone in the air...it's a great thing for a while.  It is even used in mechanical cleaning of air or water by industries.

Ozone also occurs commonly in nature as a result of lightning strikes during thunderstorms.  The “fresh, clean, spring rain ” smell that we notice after a storm results from natures creation of ozone.

Ozone is also created by waterfalls and the surf at the beach.

Because it is made up entirely of oxygen, ozone is sometimes called “activated oxygen”.

Ozone is nature’s way of purifying the air we breathe and is one of the most powerful sterilants in the world.  Its function is to destroy bacteria, viruses, spores and odors.  Source: https://www.air-zone.com/

The only reason not to stay by a waterfall all day and night is that that moving cold water also pulls heat from our bodies, thus hypothermia can happen after a little while.  I learned this the hard way when I sat at the foot of a falls painting a picture of it, and was freezing after a few hours...in the middle of summer.

Quote for today:

Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his students asked about this, he replied, "I love to go and see all the things I am happy without."

Jack Kornfield
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry