We started our trip by swinging through Jefferson, NC to visit our friends Kim and Leigh, who had come down to visit Leigh's parents. It was great to see those guys again, and their daughter, Natalie, is a cutie. Leigh's parents have a greats place tucked back in the green hills with a giant garden and a muddy pond that Kona felt the need to wallow in. Maybe we can get a picture off the camera and upload it (more on that later).

After an impromptu dog wash and some time chatting about living in Nova, etc. we headed out again in route to the mountain property.  This is when our tech-free vacation began. We had already decided not to bring Sparky the Wonder Boy (our laptop) when we left Durham, but soon realized that the DC outlet in our car was not working and both our cell phones were nearly dead. No problem. We can do without phones, and it actually might be pleasant to know that no one could call us. If we needed a phone, we could find a pay phone. Shortly after that, our ipod pooped out, and once again, we shrugged it off and tried to find a scratchy moutntain radio station to listen to. When we arrived at the land we decided to take a family picture at the spot, but we quickly learned that our camera had died. Somewhere between Jefferson and Independence it had developed a "lens error" (?!!). To make a long story short, every technological convenience we brought with us slowly died. We even forgot to bring a knife to slice our potatoes for dinner, or a can openner to get into our other food stuff!!! After exploring the land for a while and establishing a campsite and fire pit, we drove back into town and bought a pack of hot dogs to roast as a low-tech alternative to the utensil-dependent foil dinners we had planned to cook under the coals of the fire.

Despite (thanks to?) our primative condition, the trip was a roaring success. Halleigh was a bit of a handful, but she was happy most of the time, and the bugs were loud enough to help her sleep through the noise Brooke and I made after we put her down in the tent. Kona didn't roam and we didn't need the teather we brought just in case.

The next morning, Brooklynne made the traditional camp stew breakfast we always eat when car-camping, and we slowly broke camp. Once we were all packed up, we headed back west through Troudale to the Mt. Rogers Natoinal Recreation Area and the Scales campground which is situated at 4200ft. on the Appalachian Trail. The road to Scales was terrible. It took us a half-hour to drive the 4 miles from the paved road to the campground. If you can make it though, the Scales campground is one of the best groomed camping areas I have ever seen. It would be like camping on a golf course fairway.

I have to interject here that the area around Independence, Jefferson, Troudale, etc. must be the world capital of church signs. What is it about the Appalachian mountains that gives rise to such a peculiar art form? Brooklynne's favorite: "www.jesus.calm." If you're a pastor and you're planning a move to this area, you might want to practice your craft here.

Anyway, from Scales, we spent much of the day hiking a 7-mile circuit that included the "First Peak Trail" and part of the AT. Much of the hike brought us through typical Appalachian hardwood forest, but the most striking sections of trail were at the beginning and end, where our course crossed high mountain meadows carpeted with yellow, white, purple, and red wild flowers and offering 360 degree views of the blueridge. Clumps of stunted, wind-swept trees provided periodic relief from the sun, and huckleberry bushes full of ripe berries lined much of this section. I felt like I was back in Bozeman for an hour or so. I wish our camera had been working because the picture I've loaded here doesn't do it justice (it was the best one I could clip from the internet).

7 miles might have been a little ambitious for us on our first real hike with Halleigh (I'm still sore) but she did great, never crying and even taking a long nap during the long, flat, shaded section near the bottom of our course. Kona did well too, although I thik she was as sore as we were. If you counted all the squirels she chased and all the back and forth through the woods as we hiked, Kona probably covered closer to 20 miles of ground for our 7.

The longer hike and the slow drive up to scales put us behind schedule for a dinner date with our friends, Ray and Tara Bennett, so we left the campground in a hurry to get back to Durham. However, we were due for one more adventure. As we drove down from Scales, we noticed a faint scraping sound coming from the back left wheel area. The sound was vaguely familiar. Last fall we had attempted to cross through a stream in our CRV and we had bottomed out and pushed the braket that holds the fuel pump back against the left rear drive shaft. Well, we had hit several big rocks in our drive up to Scales and one of them had hit the same braketand bent it back around the drive shaft again. The first time, the bracket had been pushed against the boot that potects where the driveshaft connects with the universal (right term?) joint, so there was a danger of losing the lubrication and ruining the joint. This time, the bracket was pressed against the steel shaft itself, so there was no immediate danger, however I did not want to attempt a drive home with the driveshaft grinding against the metal bracket.

Unfortunately, we had no wrenches or other tools smaller than an axe in the car. So Brooklynne drove carefully the rest of the way back to Troutdale and we stopped at the Troutdale Trading Post to perform repairs. I went into the Post assuming they would have something like a wrench I could buy and use to bend the bracket or remove it. After scanning the slim offerings in the trading post store, I found a small crescent wrench and a pair of pliers that reminded me of something a mechanic might give his 5-year-old as a toy for Christmas. I opted for the crescent wrench and asked the old-timer behind the counter how much it was. After searching for a price, he shrugged and charged me 2 dollars.

The crescent wrench was basically useless, and after trying for a while to bend the steel bracket with my fingers and the CRV's miniature jack handle, a guy finally showed up on a dinner date to the trading post with his wife. I asked him if he had any tools in his truck, and fortunately he had a pretty good set of sockets with one that was the perfect size for the bolts holding the backet to the undercarriage. After a little more prying to create room for the socket handle, I was finally able to remove the backet and insure that the fuel pump was still securely fastened to the car.

So we were on the road again. We had completely missed our date with the Bennetts and our phones were still dead with no way to charge them, so we couldn't even call of excuse ourselves. I had not showered in over a day, I was sweaty, and I was covered head to toe in dust from the trail and grime from the car. I told Brooklynne I could not have been dirtier without licking the tiolets in the trading post. But the rest of our trip was uneventful, and we arrived home safely a little after 10pm.

This is only one of many funny camping tales Brooklynne and I have shared over the years (including an infamous hike to shining rock that some of you may have heard a time or two before). Do you have funny camping stories? Please share!