I had a great birthday weekend: I ate steak, shot guns, went off road in my Jeep, and spent time with my family. I got to shoot the following: .38 caliber, .45 caliber, .22 caliber, .357 caliber, .44 caliber (aka hogleg), M1 Garand, 12 Gauge (full choke and not so, full choke), and my personal favorite now, .36 caliber black powder model 1861 Navy. And since no post is quite complete without pictures, here’s a few of where we took a “detour” off road this weekend. [singlepic id=124 w=320 h=240 float=right] It snowed off and on all day on Saturday, and the great thing about having a Jeep is that you get to see things that’s hidden away from the interstate or the main thorough fares. [singlepic id=125 w=320 h=240 float=left]

What a weekend! My buddy and I decided to spend the weekend in Harlan, Ky at the Black Mountain Offroad park. I packed up the Jeep Friday morning: tents, tools, recovery gear, food, clothes, camping supplies, etc. I was going to pick up my brother on the way, but he couldn’t make it. I stopped in anyway to say hello since it was on my way.

I pulled in at the Harlan County Campgrounds at 1530 hrs. Chuck and Josh were there waiting on me, so I quickly got my park pass and paid for the camping. We then proceeded up the mountain to the camping spot Chuck had already picked out for us. [singlepic id=100 w=320 h=240 float=right]We got the tents set up, got a fire prepped, then headed on up the mountain into the park for a quick recon of the area before heading back into town for supper. [singlepic id=99 w=320 h=240 float=center]

The trails were really slick from the rain earlier in the week and that afternoon, so making it up the mountain to the trails was interesting in itself. The park has a green trail (easy), blue trails (intermediate to difficult), red trails (hard to extreme, body damage probable), and then the orange dotted and red dotted trails (highly modified, body damage guaranteed). Of course, we hit the first red trail we came to (48) and it was not bad at all. We ended up riding on a lot of the red trails, they had some great hill climbs and down hills, and the rain multiplied the fun factor. [singlepic id=96 w=320 h=240 float=left]Pictures don’t do justice to the steepness of these hills; at one point before ascending, Josh yelled back to me, “Tell my mom I loved her!” The red trails skirted the ridge line and offered great views at around 3400 feet. [singlepic id=98 w=320 h=240 float=left] Be sure to go to the photos page and look at the Harlan gallery where I posted more pics. We had a great weekend and I can’t wait to go back!

My first full day off in awhile, so we decided to go to Grayson Highlands State Park near Mouth Of Wilson, Va. This is a nice state park on the top of Mt. Rogers, but what makes it special is the wild ponies that roam the ridges in the area. They are Shetlands and are truly wild, grazing the balds and high pastures in the park.[singlepic id=87 w=320 h=240 float=right] The weather was really windy with the feeder bands of Irene blowing over, making it chilly, damp, and VERY windy. Caleb finished petting one of the ponies and turned away quick to move on towards the rocks and the pony nipped him in the chest. The nip bruised him pretty good, but all Caleb said was, “Ouch.”  Later, he said he wanted to shoot that horse for biting him. [singlepic id=85 w=320 h=240 float=left]We moved on to some rocks (which Caleb loves) and climbed around a bit.[singlepic id=89 w=320 h=240 float=right] [singlepic id=90 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=91 w=320 h=240 float=right] After being blown around the rocks, we picked up some “fans” on the way back down the trail. We petted the ponies for a bit then headed back to the Jeep picking and eating blackberries along the way.[singlepic id=88 w=320 h=240 float=left]

Grayson is a great place to backpack for beginners and fun for the kids because of the ponies. We had a great day!

Visiting our friends in West Virginia today, we went on our customary Jeep outing. Since[singlepic id=84 w=320 h=240 float=right] we had to be back in NC Sunday night, we set out on familiar trails to the “Wagon Wheel” which is an ATV camp north of Bramwell, WV. We found a trail last winter and wanted to find out where it went, figuring the water would be low enough to get through. This is the same trail that Sara (my Jeep) went swimming in last winter. Water was literally washing over the hood before I backed it out and deemed the hole too dip to ford. There was still plenty of water on the trail, but if it was too deep to ford, we found a way around it. Following the creek through the mountains, we didn’t get any steep hill climbs, but the mud and rocks were abundant. The creek crossings did a good job of washing the mud off our tires and underneath the Jeeps.[singlepic id=83 w=320 h=240 float=left]We started out leaving the hard top right past Pinnacle Rock state park and found our way back to civilization just outside of Northfork, WV. We then drove into Princeton for supper, and finally home. All in all, it was a good time. [singlepic id=82 w=320 h=240 float=right]And to think a guy on a 4 wheeler told us at the beginning of the trail that the mud holes and water was too big and too deep for our Jeeps.

Visiting the waterfalls in NC and TN have taught me a valuable lesson: I need to add water shoes to my backpacking list. This is the 3rd time I’ve ended up killing my feet either by taking my shoes off and beating them up on the rocks, or leaving the shoes on and walking around in soggy shoes for a few days. I also can’t wait for Caleb to be able to get bigger so I can quit lugging around the tent and go back to my “hooch” aka hammock and rain fly. In the one picture, we camped over on the left side, across the river. The other picture is a good picture of Mark smiling and Caleb, well, being Caleb. 🙂 [singlepic id=80 w=320 h=240 float=right] [singlepic id=81 w=320 h=240 float=right]