The Summer 6

 On May 9th, after 6 weeks or so of quarantine, we were ready to get out of the house!  We were just starting our outdoor adventures, so we loaded up the jogging stroller and headed to Mount Pleasant NC for the Buffalo Creek Preserve.   The trail is 4 miles round trip with a swinging bridge near the end.  It travels through an area that has recently been logged, but is being being reforested for oak trees. It is part of the Carolina Thread Trail .  There was also a portion of the trail that followed the edge of a field, which was interesting to see. The trail terrain was not very suitable for pushing a stroller.  It had loose rocks which was tough for the stroller wheels.  It also could have been muddy if we went after a rain.  After this we switched to the backpack child carrier.   The trail was a nice outing after being in the house for a long time.  Playing in the water was great and the bridge was neat.  The bridge was...

 October 18, 2020 It is fall in NC and apparently that means many people head to the mountains to check out the leaves.  We can't take a chance of getting caught in traffic because some members of our family would not tolerate that! So we found a park an hour and fifteen minutes away in Alexander County near Hiddenite, NC. We arrived around 10:45 am and there was plenty of parking. Right away we saw people rock climbing and were impressed! This is the site of a quarry that was in operation from 1922 to the 1940s, and was made into a park in 2012. There are several trails available, plus a paved walking path and children's natural play area. Things were clean and the trails were very well marked. We set out on the Buzzard Loop, which is mostly a rock staircase to get to the top of the 100 ft tall rock initial rock face. There is fencing so you can't get too close to the edge and we enjoyed seeing all the places where rock climbers could clip in their ropes. Next we started o...