A Hike On Crowder's Mountain

I must apologize in advance for the, oh, I don't know, probably 100 pictures? in this post. :P And to Mimi and Grandma DO NOT freak out when you see the mountain photos, I ASSURE you, we were safe and sound and not stupid the entire time. We made sure to never go so close to the edge as to be unsafe, though there are a few photos that look incredibly dangerous. Grandma, some of the angles might make you sick to your tummy :/ :P. Ok, so now that my warnings are over, on to the day. 

As you can assume by the title of this post, we went hiking on Crowders Mountain. We were to be joined by some friends that live near there, but they forgot they had dentist appointments so they weren't able to join us. We will be going with them again sometime in the near future. (Crowder's Mountain is near Gastonia and Kings Mountain, for those of you readers who may not know.) Because our breakfast guy woke up a little late (lol), we swung by Bojangles on the way out. I know, I know, off diet, but we were trying to get out early. October is breast cancer awareness month, thus the straws were PINK. :D I was so thrilled :P.

After a few mix-ups of finding where our trail started, we were finally able to hit the woods. The beginning of the trail was "easy". Note the blue sign. The kids were champs, though Andrew did get a little tired. His legs are small.

My feetsies. I wore Care's (I wear them so much they are practically mine) Minitonka moccasins since my tennis shoes give me blisters if I walk in them a lot. My dad laughed at my entire walking outfit though. I would wear the skirt again, but not a sweater. Just no.

there were really pretty acorns.

 As we went along the trail turned into "moderate" with means more rocks, more incline, etc. And we had a white sign.

really cool mushrooms Mum called "table mushrooms" we'll have to google them to figure out what kind they are. It looks like a table and chair though, doesn't it?

Caroline and Andrew sitting on a bench :)

When we got to the hazardous part of the trail, Mom and everyone except for Caroline, Benjamin, and me stopped and sat on random rocks and the bench. Us three continued though. There were several warning signs along the way, telling us of serious injury and death that could occur if we fell off the trail. Weeee. IT WAS GRUELING. Like for real. We took a few steps and then stopped for a break. It was almost vertical and very rocky!! 

Joshua, where we left them.

oh, might I mention us three climbers forgot to take water up to the top? Needless to say we were very thirsty when we made it back to the group :P

a pretty and smooth trail, before it went uphill.

 After like an hour, we made it to the top. If I'm not mistaken the height halfway up was 1,239 feet. Lol. I'm not sure how high the top was, but it felt VERY HIGH. Caroline was very tense, Benjamin was in awe, and I was exuberant! Now some of these pics will look scary. I again assure you, we were perfectly fine! :) 

It is so hard to show you the depth. It was very deep. I wish the camera could capture that part better.

down down down down down

There's me! enjoying the view :)

Photo of my leg, and depth.

a scaled lizard friend. It TERRIFIED Caroline when it went charging after a bug...near her :P 

I'm only holding the tree branch out of the way. And I'm not leaning I just have my arm out. No worries :)

Mr. Lizard again.

Benjamin is AMAZING. He made it to the top and back without skipping a beat!! 

some fellow hikers we met at the top. Their plan was to make motivational posters :P 

When we got back to the bottom we had lunch, and chocolate. And went on a little walk by the lake. I think we hiked 5 miles in all. And I did some sewing.

FISH!

 When we got back to the parking lot, we went into the Office and looked at the little museum they have there. There were some pretty butterflies in a case that I took a picture of.

Benjamin all worn out, asleep in the car.

sky

Hopefully you made it through all the pictures, and I hope the high ones didn't scare you. My heartbeat speeds up just looking at them because I remember the drop off up there, and even if we aren't at that point in the photos, the camera sure makes it look like we were! I had an excellent day and am very tired. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some panorama views for you, but I have to open photoshop to make them so it probably won't be tonight. Much love!