How it all started......

Just how does one
get "turned on"
to camping???????

"How did it all start?" I usually get asked by people I meet on my trips.........."my people in the woods." Yes I have people..........they're in the woods........woods people....



See him over there? --------------->


Well, if ya got a sec, sit down,
grab a cup of coffee and
the bug spray &I'll tell ya.

It all started back around 2000 when after my divorce I was sort of girlfriend with a guy who happen to love the mountains ALMOST as much as I do. So we decided one fall for vacation to go to "the mountains" which is actually not true because we all know that Alabama and Tennessee doesn't have mountains....they have foothills...... compared to out west. But it's our mountains for now..... until I can get out west that is :)

I'm going to tell the story of how it all started, it's stories filled with lessons, fear, love and humor. So once you make it through the initial stories, the rest of this website will start to contain valuable information, links, tips and advice. Be patient, I'm new at this and don't have much time to dedicate to it, but it's fun, it's a vision, it's a focus for me......so check back from time to time to see what's new!

Don't knock it til ya try it! :)

*********** I Love Fall *************

So off to buy camping things.....my sorta boyfriend INSISTED that we go to the Coleman store....."okay" I said...."but you will regret that" I told him. He was confident that I was whacked......so I shut up.....sooooo here we go buying tents and lanterns and flash lights "oh my!"......you name it......we probably got it.

His theory was..........once we get established.....we could use this stuff over and over.............. wow did we get "established".......$862.....yep I'd say we did. So after having the FIRST heart attack, we headed to Walmart to pick up everyday stuff so I....yes I say "I" decided to price shop and compare Coleman to good ole Wally world.....guess what......I had the second heart attack right there on "Isle 3"......."STROKE"......." on Isle 3 stat!! stat!!"

I already knew in my mind..... but I just could not believe the difference on prices on so many of the very same items.... Okay enough of that I'm over it. I took so many things back to Coleman that the manager said when I walked in...."you must have gone to Walmart".....I told him that "it was my twin sister that came in with my sorta boyfriend and their both a little slow"..................he didn't believe me. ;)

After getting back HALF of the total we purchased first time around, I bought the rest at Walmart....saving us $288 to put toward the trip.................YEAH...............GO ME!


Day of departure:

We left Saturday morning around 8am and drove straight through arriving at Fall Creek Falls around 4pm. "There should be enough time to check a few things out and come back to set up camp" I said. So off we go exploring for a couple of hours...... I'd say we made it back at around 6pm to set up everything and it all went pretty well considering this was the first time any of us had gone camping. After Dinner we all had our showers and was just winding down for the evening. It was around 7:30pm and we were exhausted so I turned in early and after all I like to get up early while camping. I'd say after about an hour I noticed that every time I'd almost doze off I'd hear car doors, trunks slamming and cars leaving, it kept waking me up, boyfriend was comatose so he was clueless........ Finally after about 15 minutes of constant banging I unzipped and peaked outside to see the campground nearly deserted!

What is going on? "I wonder if there is bad weather moving in?" I thought to myself.
So I walked over to a neighbor who was still packing up and asked why is everyone leaving, is bad weather headed this way? She said "yes, you'd better get your family up and moving"....so that's what I did. I sheepishly told her we didn't have a weather radio, that we were first timers and she smiled and said....."I understand, we all were first timers once upon a time." so then I didn't feel SO incredibly stupid. She was probably just telling me that and thinking to herself...."Go back home city girl and try again next year!" because I don't exactly fit the part of a "mntn_laydee" I do look more like a city girl because I work in a corporate office. But it made me wonder if any of our fellow campers were going to warn us seeing as how were the only ones not moving?!?!?!?! I know I would NOT have left anyone in the campground thinking they might not know about the storm coming. That's just crazy.

So here it is just finally getting dark and we are headed down off the mountain going to find a hotel room for the night. Not knowing where we were going to go, which direction would have been best, it's dark, the winds are starting to pick up and I'm really bitchy.
When I finally reached the main road to either go North or South....we couldn't make up our mind....so I chose South.......horrible mistake, I should have went North.

After about 45 minutes of driving it started to rain so hard that it was coming in sheets......sideways, I could only do about 25mph on this two lane, out in the middle of nowhere.....Hwy 27, "The road of death" I named it. It made me feel like we were watching a scene out of a horror movie like Wrong Turn or Cabin Fever. There are only two or three gas stations on this entire road which were closed.....better be glad I filled up just before reaching Fall Creek Falls earlier that day.

"Is that hail?" I asked, "I think so" said sorta boyfriend, so I slowed down to 20 mph and within minutes I could not control the SUV's direction, the nose kept wanting to go to the left and the sound was deafening, so much that boyfriend and I woke the kids up yelling just to hear one another........ and then it hit me........we drove right into........ a tornado.

All I could do was pray out loud to God and try to keep control of the SUV, it was so dark that I couldn't see where the tornado was, which way it was headed, how big it was or anything.....all I know is it was VERY close......too close. But I said if we were going to die, we going to die trying to stay alive.
I crept carefully through the howling wind and rain and within about a minute or two, it was all over.......it just stopped.....all of it...hail, rain and wind.....gone. Since we were the only idiots on this "road of death" I stopped the SUV got out to look around..... and listen......sorta boyfriend and I just stood there looking at each other in the glow of the headlights surrounded by darkness. There was an eerie howling/groaning in the distance off to the East....the groaning of the very same tornado that had just brushed past us and spared our lives...........was now terrorizing someone else.

"God be with them" I whispered.

So we got back in the SUV and drove out of there as fast as I safely could just in case there were more to come. We arrived in Chattanooga, TN and was going to get a room but I was too hyped up to sleep so I decided to keep driving as long as I could. After arriving alive in Ft. Payne, AL, we got a room and slept in most of the morning. I flipped on the television, checked the weather for the day and sure enough the meteorologist confirmed that there in fact had been 3 small tornadoes touch down in the very area were driving through. I knew I wasn't crazy.......I watched the movie TWISTER!!!!!! Haha

So we had brunch and decided to check out the local attractions around Gadsden/Ft.Payne since we still had one day to spare. This is when we discovered Gracie High Falls, Little River Canyon, Noccalula Falls and several covered bridges......so it worked out after all. Even though we didn't get to see much of  Fall Creek Falls, TN we knew we would go back and this time we would be better prepared and most of all.... plan ahead.

That trip was enough to calm the yearning to camp for quiet awhile, actually until the following year HA HA.





Our second trip to Fall Creek Falls:


So when it came time to make Fall camping plans again I got on the internet as early as August and started researching everything about camping...tips, tricks, knowledge, do's and don'ts and the day we were to leave, weather for the entire week that we were to be there, you name it I read it and I also purchased a weather radio. I was a regular server of information and I had it all printed out in a handy dandy folder.

Day of Departure:
So it's time to leave...... all nine of us......count 'em.......NINE.......his three kids, my three kids, a friend of my oldest daughter, he and I......all in a Suburban XL.........over 300 miles ahead of us .......in the Middle of July...... in the south......WTH were we thinking?!?!?!?!?!

Especially after the first trip and tornadoes????????

The first part of the ride was great, we left after work Friday night, thankfully by time we reached Chattanooga, TN the kids were napping in and out so it was easier to concentrate. I don't remember what time we left but we got into TN around 2:30 am and merging onto I-24 I almost took out an 18 wheeler....the lane just ended....no signs, no warnings....nothing...... just the brakes jammed down to the floor.
"Whooo- Hoooo Wake up kids!!!!!...We're in Tennessee! "Lord, please don't let the bad karma mess up this trip like the last one" I said.







You might be asking
why I didn't let sorta boyfriend drive?
HAHAHA.
*Pfft*.....he gets lost in the back yard!

SEE?!?!? I Ain't lying!

 So once again we drive up the "road of death" and this time it was daylight with sunny skies, we even remembered the approximate area where the tornado came through that night. It was between two very high mountain ridges in a very beautiful area that looked generally undisturbed, this was not a populated area it was just beautiful open fields between the mountains..... and of course even if there was damage to the forest we wouldn't have been able to tell it........ after all it had been a year.


We arrived at Fall Creek Falls around 2pm and set up camp immediately. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and exploring the many activities and beauty that the park had to offer. I can not say enough about how much fun it was camping that week in the mountains.
It was warm and breezy during the day and cool at night but only where you had to lightly bundle up sitting around the campfire. We jumped off towering bluffs and swam all day long, hiked down to the what seemed like a million different waterfalls ravines and creeks, we played badmitton and Frisbee, we grilled and ate like pigs, we made smores, hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken, baked beans, grilled corn on the cob. One nightI heard something fall and a scurrying around the campsite, I grabbed the flashlight, unzipped to look out and saw a raccoon and if I would have had my camera handy, I would now be rich.

The kids had left a small amount of coke in a coke can on the picnic table. When I shined the flashlight on him he was standing on his hind legs drinking it with his front two paws! Boy it was a Kodak moment I missed! Coke would have been proud to use that picture or footage, if I only had a video camera ready.

Another night, we had a skunk visit our site, he was just traveling through, he didn't hurt anyone and Thank God he didn't spray. The last night we were there I killed a snake with my fishing pole (it was the only thing handy.....we had just about everything else packed up ready to roll out the next morning)

I learned that weird things come out at night in the wilderness...take it easy, Im a newbie. lol

We sang, we squealed, we yelled and played like fools......and then there were the quiet times......at night when the kids giggled quietly from their tents and everyone settled down for the night and watched the stars and again in the twilight just before dawn when the morning light was at it's softest...... gently waking us to go take on the world.

We laughed, we loved and most of all we lived..... something that my girls and I had not been able to do in 5 years ........and that my friends....... is when I discovered the love I had for camping and the love I had for living.

* Mntn_Laydee *