Trail Days 04 TR - Gem says, "I'll stick it up..."

“I arrived at Fluffer's house around 11pm Thurs we taked, tried to be quiet cause Flipher was sleeping and had to work the next day.
Friday morning we were up at 6:30am and getting ready slowly. Fluffer told me she would not be able to hike after falling out her SUV at the Lowe's parking lot..so she was limping ever so slightly.
So after packing everything in the SUV we took off..first stoping at a local breakfast hole and eating ourselves silly. We arrived at the campsite around 11am..ok we didn't hurry. Everyone was there from Carolina's hikers, for the most part. The 2 C's and the 2 Billies, Cross and Litefoot,Gemini, and Hyway.
I put up my signs (which I forgot) however we have photos. Then we set up the condos..after saying hello to everyone. The Condo was nice..and everyone else took off to look at the vendors and eat but hyway stayed behind and helped us..I was very thankful for that..cause us too short women would have never gotton that tent up alone. After that we arrived in town and the fun began.. we carried a mixed drink from Fluffer's magical cooler and I was feeling fine. WE meet up with the others and enjoyed seeing men in kilts and other sights.
Then at night we got Amil and headed back to camp as soon as she got there we started our real party..and it wasn't long before Billie, Amil and I were dancing around the fire...feeling fine.
I dont' know how long we danced but at one point some of the hiker chics captured Amil and were making them dance withher..Billie told me to get her which I did..wheww close call...lol
After that we walked Amil to the bathroom where she locked herself in the stall... somehow..

oh shoot I have to go to my testing center..be back later..”

“i always heard you had to watch out for the quiet ones....


lol”

“Amil, I missed her. Was she as wild as Aiel?”

“thanks for the correction Hyway...

Anyway so finally after much laughter we got Sharon out of the stall and since she was having some trouble getting around..Billie and I got on both sides of her and supported her tryting to get her back to camp.
We were almost home free when I lost my hold on Sharon and suddenly her and Billie were both in the ditch. Well I just stood there and didn't know what to do.
I looked in and Billie was on her back, Sharon was on her stomache..laughing.. Billie keeps telling me to help her out..but I can't figure out who is who...finally I reach for the hand that I can see in the dark..(we have no head lamps) and then there I go sliding down in the ditch..well then there are 3 of us in the ditch..one group of people come by and we are asking for help and one of them say "keep walking" hmm I would like to thank them one day. Finally a group of guys come up and help us all out..Well we are all scratched and bruised but still in pretty good mood..it's amazing how vodka, schnapps and other vairous drinks numb pain. I notice some tightness in my ankle but nothing serious so off I go draging Sharon to the tent and letting her crawl in ..as soon as I was sure she was inside I took off to join the others. I continued to hang out with the others till 2am.
Believe it or not some where in the night someone got sick and others ate but I didnt' hear anything but some guy in the tent beside us throwing up.
I slept till about 6:30 am and rearing to go again. Of course Sharon was bushed and she stayed at camp to rest. Hyway, Fluffer and I headed to town armed with waterguns. Me I hopped for the most part with my ankle wrapped and the gash in my knee ...not sure when I got that. My leg looked like a cat had gotton ahold of it. We got to town, ate and headed to the parade. Since I knew I couldn't run. I left the group and found a hopefully safe spot on the road. I picked pretty well and only got one water ballon busted on me..I can thank Ramble for that.
Sat night there was no bondfire dancing for me. I sat around and kept my foot up and enjoyed just hanging out talking with the group. When the rain started around 6pm or so.. the group worked together and had tarps up where you wouldn't think taprs could go. There was enough room for all of us to sit..by 7pm after hearing that rain I was bushed I crawled in the tent and passed out for about 2 hrs. I could hear Gemini and the others laughing as I fell asleep. I awoke to the group behind our tent playing guitar and singing..something about "they had a beaver"
I got back up and found people still talking around the area.
Miss Opie and Opie came up and chatted a bit and Carlette,Hyway and I joined the guitar player in singing Hotel California.
Sunday was a quick 2nd walk around the vendors and I bought me a red rain jacket (I think the same brand as Roam's jacket) mine is a pull over. Wild bill convinced me that it was a good deal. We ate a great dinner at the Mill Restuarant and then we left... I had lots of fun and over 200 photos to share. It was a great time and I look forward to seeing and meeting more of the tters and even the Carolina's hikers that I haven't meet yet.

My favorite quote..
Hmmmm "I'm locked in the bathroom and I can't get out!!"”

“rox, if it's a red ledge you'll like it, I like mine a lot, compresses well, liteweight and keeps me dry. Pullover or zip is a personal preference thing, I've never tried a pullover jacket.”

“They only had the red pull over left and it was my size..luck!

I paid 30.00 for it. That was half price, I have already tried it out because it was pour when we got to Fluffer's house and I didn't get a bit wet.”

“thats a great price!”

“I wonder how much square footage we had covered with tarp, including our neighbors. Had to be equal to a small house!”

“yeah I agree Roam our tarp system was like a small house

I forgot 2 things about this trip...first was Hyway jumping in backwards in 4 ft of water.

Then I saw a thru hiker take off all of his clothes, left with only a pr. of dirty undies riped on the die..uggggg”

“I don't remember going in backwards. You must be referring to the flips.”

“I'm still trying to figure out this phrase that rox typed:

"riped on the die"

Not trying to bust your chops, rox, but what are you talking about?”

“dirty underwear ripped on the side?”

“OK, probably. Missing letters make words really hard to understand.”

“actually only if the fsrit or lsat or the mnisisg ones”

“She wouldn't have been complaing if it had been Bramble wearing those nasty looking butt huggers.”

“nope, she'd have taken pictures!”

“She'd have fainted.”

“lmao Hyway, don't think she could take it huh?”

“I am glad to have kept you amused. I was laughing my arse off reading it on my break. Do you just not like my aiel name?? I got some medicine from my doctor waiting for me at the pharmacy for this poison ivy.”

“It looked like the pic someone posted here of the uniform for the female version of hooters only it didn't have the trunk and it was a lot more ratty. The dude didn't care a lick.”

“lol, sometimes it's best not to care a lick.”

“Thats my motto, well all except for the lick part. If I cared about what other people thought I wouldn't have been able to wear that great big hat. LOL”

“Thanks stove...it means ripped on the sides... gosh I was in a hurry missed my spell check again.”

“Glad you liked my story Sharon...you get better soon...dang we will be carry this memory around for awhile.

I went to the school nurse before lunch and she about flipped when she saw my ankle...so off to the emergency room. Dr says stay off complete for 3 days... if I want to hike Memorial weekend..dang it.

He said crutches but I just can't handle that so I have a nice wooden cane..hmmm I think it can double as a weapon.

Hey guys if Ramble would have been there in those undies I could have handled it!!!”

“You are welcome. ;-)”

“Yeah Hyway don't give a lick...”

“always nice to have someone around that speaks my language”

“We dyslexic people need to stick together! ;-)

Does a dyslexic agnostic insomniac lay awake at night wondering if there is a dog?”

“some pics

pretty much the same stuff. no caption yet...sorry...”

“Cool photos woman!”

“Gem, what camera did you use at Sipsey? I liked the quality of the photos from there and wouldn't mind having one like it.”

“Do you guys need a trip report from the OPIE's or is it already a given? lol”

“If you want ours to stand as the truth then it is given ;)”

“yeah, please spare us unless yall have pics to share too.

;)”

“FRIDAY: OPIE and I finally arrived at our cabin around 7 after driving around the town for an hour trying to find it! I never imagined it would be so hard to find Taylor Valley! Don't use mapquest to try to find the place and be careful because the road has 2 names and 2 road signs! Talk about confusing! But anyway after we dropped our things off we headed to town and looked around at all the vendors. We watched this funny kid try to ride the mechanical bull. He would just roll off it like a blob! Everytime we walked by it he was on it. But anyway by that time we were hungry, well I was anyway, Randy had to pull me away from the crazy fries, and we went to the pizza place downtown. We waited forever on our pizza but we were entertained by all the thru hikers. I was intrigued by their feet! After pizza we made our way to the campground and went the long way to find the TT'ers. I didn't think we were ever going to find them and I was just about to give up when Randy saw the troll sign. We didn't hang around long that night because we were tired so after meeting everyone that we didn't already know we headed back to the cabin.
SATURDAY: We slept in Saturday morning and then made our way downtown to get ready for the parade. OPIE prepared us with us cooler full of ice water and water balloons. We ran out of water way too soon for the parade so we ran to the truck and Randy threw the cooler in it and we ran as fast as we could to try to make it to the bridge before all the thru hikers got there. We, especially him, had a blast in the water spraying everyone with our stream machines. There was a little girl on the bridge begging for Randy to spray her. She probably taunted him for 15 minutes! I thought I was going to have to beat her up (j/k!). She was soo adorable! Needless to say we were worn out by the parade and the watergun fight so we went back to the cabin to dry off and to take showers. Wow and did we go back just in time. As soon as we got ready to take a nap the bottom fell out of the sky. The lightning was wild in the valley, it scared me it was so loud! It was however peaceful to sleep to the pouring rain! After our nap we got dressed and went and ate dinner at the Mill. The food there was great, unlike the pizza joint. We had a really good dinner with a nice view of the river (romantic :) ) After dinner we went to the campsite to meet up with the TT'ers. We drank a few and then went and stood around the bonfire. I had so much fun! I had to drag everyone in the middle and when we made our way out there we stopped the circle because there were so many of us. Dub and I finally made it past the "shake it like a polariod picture" lady and when I turned around everyone else had backed out of the circle, including my own man!!! How dare them! Dub and I were the only ones so we stepped out of line then because it was soo hot!! We went back and hung out at the campsite for a little while longer and then left.
SUNDAY: Woke up, went to sundown outfitters (?) and then headed back to Nashvegas!

We had a blast and I can't wait to go back next year!”

“I posted pictures on the other thread”

“Roam I forgot to mention that you have great kids! They were sweet and they seemed to get along so well! Very cute too!”

“Dub I have the olympus camedia c5050. it's a little on the big site but does take great pics.

Ms. Opie, when I uploaded my pics I realized that I have doodle worth of pics...not from you guys, not from smokygirl...nothing.. dangig!! I wasn't in the picture taking mood that weekend. Oh well!

Thanks for the report. We ate brunch at the mill on sunday. I think it was one of the best brunches I have ever ate and I ate at some nice restaurants before.”

“crutches are awful things. I only used them for a day and came close to falling so many times that day I gave up. Plus, can't use any kind of walking aid like that where I work (safety). Hope you are feeling better soon. Maybe you should stay on the couch eating bonbons and prop a nice pic of ramble on the table to help you recover?”

“Hey Ms. Opie, thanks! The kids had a blast - they both wanna go back next year too.

It was great finally meeting you two!”

“Well, I am just keeping that dang thing elevated. I just can't seem to do the crutches thing right either. I have a cane but I felt like an old woman with it..so keeping the gell splint on it and wraping it too.. got to be better by Memorail weekend...we are talking about backpacking in Panthertown are you interested?”

“I don't think I can. I have a wedding to be at Saturday night and my mom will be here that weekend also. I wish I could since I have not been there before.”

“aiel, just send the gift ahead of time with a nice card wishing them luck and happiness, then call your Mom every day leading up to the trip explaining how you really hate that you'll miss her visit. Offer to buy her a web cam so yall have online face to face conversations.

Now, start making your gear list for Panthertown!”

“Gem, your pics aren't the same as everyone elses. You have some of them pulling the log out of the woods. And the Pork Palace where people checked-in to pay the parking fee for the campground. Your bonfire pics were the clearest yet. I am glad you finally posted your pics.”

“I have managed to do some research for links about Panthertown should I post it to the trips page?”

“sure rox, i was waiting for you to do so.

I posted on the yahoo thread some info on the Forest Service Office for the Highlands district.

I also ordered a trail map for the area.”

“I really like that pic with all the sparks flying up from the bonfire!”

“Yes, as I expected, Opie and Miss Opie spent most of their time in the cabin, lol...”

“Anyone remember the trail names of some of the thru hikers that hung out in camp with us? I remember Digger saying she didn't have one, but she had an email list and Crosscut has her email addy. I found Bramble's, but I can't remember the names of the other hikers...shoulda wrote that crap down.”

“dragonslayer, eats?,”