Corridor 9

Most everything has been packed up and is now ready to move into the new house. I’ve only got a few things left to put in boxes. Most of those are items I use daily and can’t afford to go without for too long a period of time. Thanks to Kristie for helping motivate me to get moving already. I’m going to try and borrow a trailer tomorrow and move a good portion of my stuff alone, this way if I do decide to get a U-Haul, there won’t be that much stuff left to move. If this weather holds out though, I may just move everything by trailer.

I’ve been working a lot lately on a new drafting project, and thus have kindof slacked away from posting. I’m pleased to announce that its coming along rather nicely. I’ve been working through an online course to learn how to draft more effectively on AutoCAD. Its been a very slow process; this design took me about 4 days to complete, but I’ve been learning at a rapid pace and am really enjoying it. Not to mention that I’m really looking forward to designing my own house.

In other news, I am getting ready to move sometime in the middle of next week. This weekend is going to be spent packing and getting everything ready for the final push to take the “higher ground”. After looking over my possessions thoroughly this past week, I think its only going to take me a day or 2 to pack, and hopefully only 2-4 hours to move everything to the new place.

Seeing as how Corridor 9 is hosted on a machine I own, housed in my office, I figured I should prepare you for the inevitable. THIS WEBSITE WILL GO DOWN FOR AT LEAST 2-4 HOURS DURING THE MOVE. I will try to get it back up as soon as possible, and may even move the server before I move any other items. Please be patient.

Because of the configurable options, I needed to swap out a few components on my new internal frame backpack. Luckily they came in a few days ago and the pack fits much nicer and seems to ride better on my back. I think I’ll enjoy using it sometime this winter. Don’t tell Kristie though… She still doesn’t want me going hiking this winter.

Unfortunately, I missed my midnight deadline to get this posted. We just had a report of a gas leak that we spent almost an hour at waiting on the gas company to show up. Nothing much for us to do but stand around and laugh at Todd. Anyway, its off to bed for me. I’m going to be packing tomorrow but I’ll try to get an update out. Peace.

I finished signing the papers to the new townhouse yesterday. I got the keys and am really looking forward to moving in. There were a few things that I needed to have looked at first. One of the locks wasn’t functioning properly, and for some reason the garbage disposal was getting power, but it wasn’t turning. It seemed to have been frozen or locked up for some reason. The manager told me today that he had submitted the work order for those items, and they should be fixed fairly soon.

In addition, I was looking at my finances and noticed how close they were going to be this month due to the security deposits I needed to put down. However, God provided exactly like I said he would. I was looking at having to put down a $150 deposit for the utilities to be turned on at the new place, but when I went to pay the bill I was told that It was only going to be $10. God is SO GOOD! It’s times like this that have so greatly increased my faith over the last few months. I can’t say that I don’t worry about things cause thats just in the human nature. Now though, I find myself saying “God will provide” and putting my problems in his hands more than worrying about them. I used to try and tell God how big my problems are, now I simply realize how BIG my God is, and the problems don’t seem that bothersome anymore!

Well… I’ve been at the fire station for 3 days now and I’m itching to go home. Hopefully today will be a lot slower than the last 2 days. It seemed like we were running every 30 minutes yesterday. Luckily they were all false alarms. Maybe I’ll be able to take a nice long nap since its Sunday and sleep away most of my remaining time in this prison.

Rejoice all! No Google Ads for you!

I tried putting up a few ads at the bottom of the page. Nothing big, and nothing that anyone would pay much attention to, but something that would generate a bit of income for me none the less. However, as soon as I activated the ad generator, the first one that popped up was for a dating service!

” See 1000’s of beautiful woman to……..” Not on MY SITE!

So, I have decided that my site will remain Ad free for as long as I can support the site on my own!

Madisonville has a new radio station in town. Finally, 88.7 Way FM has made it to madisonville. WayFM is a Christian station with very contemporary music for a younger generation. Take a look at the webpage or listen online.

Way-FM Webpage

Well, its that time once again. CHRISTMAS!!!! Woohoo!

Now most of you who know me are aware of the fact that not only can I not remember things, but I can’t make up my mind on anything. I have established a fix for those 2 problems here. I will list a number of items that I would like for Christmas, thus giving those who care the opportunity to pick and choose. NOTE: there will be NO CLOTHING ITEMS on this list….. hint hint hint!

Christmas Wish List!!!

Ok… so maybe a few pieces of clothing. Because I usually get complained to about my gift expenses, I tried to include a lot of low cost gift ideas. This list will probably continue to grow, as my dreams and thoughts expand.

For those of you who haven’t already guessed. Yes, I am getting married at the end of November. Thats the big news. I was really disappointed at the number of people who didn’t even attempt to solve the clues, much less post comments to get others involved. Thanks Gwen for being there for me as well as the others in your comment posting. I’ll have to see what I can do to get these people to post more often!

I told Amanda I’d post about her cat bailey being a finalist in the petco howl-o-ween contest.

Here’s a direct link for you to vote at. She said you can vote with whatever emails you have and con vote once a day under those various emails.

Vote here!

Thanks to Dennis, I was able to head up to Indianapolis ths morning to get the car back from Jen. It was real painless and went much better than I ever could have hoped for. Abby and I went to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie, and laughted our heads off. After that we went out for dinner and ice cream before I had to head back to Madisonville. I was really glad I got to spend a bit of time with her before I had to come back. I have missed her and wish she could come down for Halloween, but unfortunately I’ll have to wait till after that to see her again. Anyway… I’m probably rambling, I’ve been up and on the road for well over 15 hours today. I’m heading to bed. Good night all!

So far, Flute is in the lead.

Clue 3:

1/2 Jimmy = (Rusty * Newman)

Ready… here goes.

Clue 2:

Not quite binary, try ASCII; 00110010

Ok all…. so heres the deal.

We’re going to play a little game. Call it a kind of scavenger hunt. I’ll give you the clues, and you tell me what they mean. I think we’ll leave this one uncategorized as well. This way you won’t know which part of my life this falls into. LOL. Also… put your gueses in the comments section. If you already know… DON’T SPOIL IT FOR OTHERS!
HAVE FUN!

Clue 1:

The first book.

I’m working on some BIG news to share soon. You’ll just have to wait a bit longer to see what it is.

After emerging from the mountains we had to go to Elkmont campground because Cades Cove had filled up for the weekend. We checked in with the ranger and surveyed our campsite before heading off to Gatlinburg to look around. Upon returning we found someone in our campsite. There was a family of four who had arrived at camp late that evening and was told by the ranger that campsites were open on a first come first served basis. They didn’t know that we had already talked to the ranger earlier that day and paid for the site. Rather than making them break camp, repack their camper, and move to another site we just decided to share the site with them for the evening. We were sleeping in a tent anyway and had plenty of room to setup out of their way. Besides, all we were doing was sleeping there that night and leaving early in the morning while the other campers were planning on staying the weekend.

We loaded up the following morning and headed out to find a place to take a shower. It was so nice getting some of the stink that had built up for 5 days washed off. We bummed around Gatlinburg, Townsend, and a few other places on the drive home simply to get out and stretch for a while. All in all it was a spectacular trip and I will definitely be going again soon.

Hey all.. I’m sorry its taken me so long to post the last day of the trip. Kristie, Kendall and I went to Louisville yesterday to pick Abby up for the weekend, we were gone almost all day, and I wasn’t able to take the time I needed to post last night. As it stands now, I’m sitting at mom & dads and have a few minutes to type this out. I’ll Try and get a real update out to you all tonight before heading to bed as tomorrow I’m heading back to Louisville to take Abby back to her mother.

Our first night in a tent was a cold one. We had setup a clothesline inside the tent to try and dry our some of our wet things but with the cloud cover rolling in outside, and the condensation from our breath on the inside, our clothes didn’t dry at all. At least we were warm and dry inside our sleeping bags.

When we got up there were fresh bear tracks near the tree where we stored our food. Luckily our food was far enough away from the tent that we are pretty sure he didn’t meander through camp. We packed up our things and headed back up to Gregory Bald for one of the prettiest sights during the trip. The weather was gorgeous, the clouds were off to the southeast, and the view of Cades Cove was magnificent. We stayed there taking pictures for about 30 minutes before heading down the trail towards our next campsite.

On the way down we met a guy who was taking a day trip to Gregory Bald and talked with him for about 10 minutes. He was from near Nashville, but often made trips out to the smokeys to get away. He told us of a few of his stories and also where some of the camping stores in and around Gatlinburg were before we parted ways.

We reached the next campsite we were supposed to stay in fairly early, around 12:30, because the terrain was almost completely down hill. After taking a dip in the stream and grabbing a few snacks we decided it wasn’t worth hanging around all night when we had so much daylight ahead of us so we loaded our packs on our backs once again and finished the 1.9 miles to Parson Branch road. When we reached the road we noticed that there were 4 cars parked there, and assumed they belonged to the 4 sets of day hikers we saw heading for Gregory Bald that morning. Since parsons Branch road was closed to traffic because of washouts, we knew that these cars would need to exit the same way as us and hoped we could hitch a ride.

It wasn’t long before we saw one of the cars and stuck out our thumbs. It just so happened to be the gentleman we talked with from Nashville. When we jumped in he told us that we weren’t far from the trail head. However, he thought we were parked at the visitors center instead of the ranger station, so we were in fact about 8 miles away from where we needed to end up. I was so glad that we had a ride since I already had 4 blisters on my feet and I really didn’t want to walk an additional 8 miles along a road that day.

After parting ways, changing into some nice dry shoes, and trying to get a campsite ( they were full ), we headed off to Clingmans Dome. CD is the highest point in Tennessee and we were hoping that we could get some wonderful pictures of the surrounding area. Unfortunately, like the rest of the trip, Clingmans Dome was surrounded by clouds. What a bummer.

More pictures can be found at this link.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 5 of our 5 day hike!

When you are on top of a mountain, or a ridge as it were, the cooling air at night causes the winds to rush over the mountaintop sounding almost like the ocean crashing against the rocky shore. It can be quite peaceful laying there in the chill of the night, feeling the rushing wind on your face as you drift off to sleep. It can also be quite cold.

As with most of the previous day, the night air was filled with the moisture of the clouds floating by. We were high enough in elevation to be in the middle of the cloud cover for all the night and most of the next day. Unfortunately the moisture from the clouds wasn’t the only moisture we felt that day. It rained from the time we got up throught the entire 6 mile hike to the next campsite. Dads shoes were nice and dry for most of the trek, however mine weren’t gore-tex like his and were soaked within 100 steps of leaving camp.

Reaching Gregory Bald wasn’t as eventful or exciting as I would have hoped due to the constant cloud cover. Visibility was less than 50 feet in all directions, and it didn’t seem like the cloud cover was going to let up anytime soon. We left Gregory Bald and continued another half mile to camp at Sheep Pen Gap where we set up our tent and headed out to get water from a nearby stream. It was then that I found out how effectively my water filter worked. It was clogged up almost completely with dirt and silt from the day before. Cleaning was a breeze though and as soon as the dirt was washed away I was back to pumping 1 liter / minute of fresh, clean water into my canisters.

After returning to camp I laid down to take a nap and fell asleep like a baby. It wasn’t until the sunlight was almost gone that I finally woke up. Getting back to sleep wasn’t hard though as exhausted as I was.

More pictures can be found at this link.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 4 of our 5 day hike!

After waking up rather late the second morning one of the first things I did was to step outside the shelter and stretch for a few minutes. I was surprised that I was receiving a cell signal on top of the mountain so I decided to call Kristie at work. “Guess what I’m doing; I’m standing on top of a mountain in my underwear!” She laughed loud enough for her coworkers to hear her, but was glad to hear from me none the less.

After heating water for an oatmeal breakfast, we finished packing and headed out for our next destination. Somehow along the way I must have twisted my knee causing it to become increasingly painful to walk downhill. Climbing uphill didn’t hurt, but anytime I had to step down it felt like someone was stabbing me in my right knee. After hiking about 3.3 miles, both dad and I were feeling exhausted because of the change in elevation and the fact that we arrived late at camp the previous night.

We decided to stop at Mollies Ridge shelter around 3 pm rather than continuing on to our next scheduled campsite. We knew that if we were forced to travel the additional 6 miles we would once again be getting in after dark, and would likely be in worse shape than the night before. It was much easier to change the itinerary and relax for a day than it would be to continue on and hurt even more than we already did.

At the shelter there was two other hikers who were also staying that night. They were approximately 70 miles into a 100 mile trek as part of a christian counseling experience. We talked with them for most of the evening about their trip and equipment, slowly realizing ourself that we had packed entirely too much stuff. Their packs were about half the weight of ours and they were much more in tune with the equipment and supplies needed for a hiking adventure. We basically had twice as much equipment as them , and were only hiking 1/3 the distance. In the beginning, we planned for three meals a day. I didn’t realize that when you hike that much your appetite diminishes and you don’t really feel like cleaning up all your equipment after 3 big meals a day. Because of this we gave away a good portion of our food supplies to these two other hikers so they wouldn’t have to resupply along the way. It helped them out but helped us out more seeing as how our bodies were aching from the weight of the packs.

Our itinerary changed from then out also. I thought we had bitten off a bit more than we could chew , and it appeared that was indeed the case. So that evening after staying at Mollies Ridge we decided to change our trip to something a bit closer to the original plan.

More pictures can be found at this link.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 3 of our 5 day hike!

With knees and legs aching, our camping trip was a complete blast. However, it was nice to get home Saturday and relax for more than a day before heading back to the grind.

We started out late, around 8 am, last Tuesday morning due to dad not getting hardly any sleep the night before. I was sympathetic because I myself didn’t get to sleep till almost 1 am the night before. We made it to Nashville well before 9:30 and stopped at Bass Pro Shops looking for a few last minute items. We weren’t able to find exactly what we wanted so we went down to the Sun and Ski Sports store in the same mall. Once again, we weren’t able to find exactly what we wanted, but were able to purchase a few of the things that were needed.

About 10:30 and we were finally getting back on the road again. We’d made good time so far, and I was determined to get to Cades Cove before 4 pm. Unfortunately, in spite of the 85-90 mph average speed we were traveling, we didn’t make it to the ranger station till around 4:30 EST. I filled out the necessary backcountry hiking & camping permit, while dad went to fill up our water bottles. He called mom right before we left, and we hit the trail a little after 5pm. We had been warned to take plenty of spare batteries due to the fact that we would probably not make camp before dark.

About a mile into the trail things took a turn for the worse. For every 5 feet we went forward, we were going approximately 4 feet up. This is a pretty extreme hill and the change in elevation & Oxygen levels didn’t help much. It got to a point where we were only able to walk about 100 yards before we had to stop and take a breather. Needless to say, the ranger was right. It took us about 5 hours to travel 5 miles, with the last 2 hours being completely in the dark.

It was a bit of a hair raising experience as we knew we were in bear country, and also knew there was recent bear activity at the campsite we were heading to. At one point we smelled something like wet dog that was so strong, something must have crossed our path just a few minutes before. We didn’t see anything, but I speculate that wet bear smells like wet dog. Hmmmm.

After about 4.8 hours, I was starting to get worried, and judging by the map, we had passed up our campsite by about half a mile. I ended up dropping pack and hiking about 100 yards up the trail to make sure we were still going in the right direction. Right about the time I was going to turn around, I crested a hill and saw the shelter off to the left. What a wonderful site that was as we were both exhausted and ready for a long night of sleep. I went back, got dad and my pack and we finished the last few yards to the campsite. It didn’t take us long to setup our sleeping bags, prepare some dinner, and hit the sack for the night. We were so exhausted we didn’t wake up till well after 10 am the next morning.

Here are a few pictures from the first day of our expedition.

More pictures can be found at this link.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 2 of our 5 day hike!