Kayaking

Summer time at my workplace means more interns and more traffic.  In my case, it meant having old friends around again.  Except many old friends and natives of Oak Ridge have other plans in California, Spain or Kenya.  Luckily one old friend did return to work this summer.  So when I texted and asked if he was interested in hanging out, I was at an awkward loss for what to suggest.  A meal?  A movie?  Is that really the best I could come up with?  I wasn't going to suggest shopping with this friend.  This is awfully embarrassing, don't I have a blog on where to go?!?!  Yes, I do!  Pull yourself together and think of somewhere to go or something to do that is a little more original than eating out or watching a movie!  I suggested Gatlinburg, a very touristy destination about an hour away.  He said it was too far.  He didn't have the right shoes for hiking either.  At this point I was really bargaining with my imagination to think up a storm... of better ideas.

How about kayaking??  I knew of exactly where to go, and I saw their rates at some point in time, just had to go confirm.  Yes!  The Cove at Concord Park had kayak rentals offered by River Sports Outfitters, $25 for half a day and $35 for a full day rental.  Half day means 3 hours, by the way.  I had wondered about that.  I mean, I knew without a doubt that "half day" did not literally mean 12 hours.  Oh, tip, always clarify the ambiguities. Three hours on the kayak for $25 (including tax is a little over $27) is a pretty good deal compared to what I saw at Lake Tahoe, $20/hour for 1-person kayak, $26/hour for 2-person kayak and $30/hour for 3-person kayak.  Of course, me being a cheap was thinking, "Hiking would have been free."  Just kidding, I didn't actually think that, I was pretty excited to kayak.   

Overcast day at the Cove at Concord Park

What I like about kayaking is that it's comparatively effortless compared to canoeing.  I think that canoeing takes skill that I acquire slowly.  Kayaking is faster and as a result, more fun.  The two-sided paddle is what makes it easier and faster in my opinion.  Also, since it requires less skill, it makes it easier to enjoy the views and relax.  My friend was a first-timer and he picked it up right away.  Despite believing kayaking to be easy, I managed to splash myself with each stroke.  Why?  I don't know.  Also, I may or may not have been using the paddles the wrong way during the first hours.  Whoops.  Experience is overrated.  :P

There's the beach!

The first hour we went out was pretty tiring.  We cross the lake, at a fairly quick speed to avoid the boats.  I, of course, was paranoid about the waves flipping me over.  Worrying is energy consuming, hence feeling more tired.  We took a break and had Snickers ice cream bars.  Then, we went back out and circled around the Marina.  My friend is from the coasts of Croatia and he said one of the things he misses about home is the sound of boats.  The sound is similar wind chimes.  Unfortunately, for the second hour I left my camera behind, thinking that I wanted to enjoy kayaking rather than photographing.  I could have recorded the sound, but since I did not, it means you'll have to go listen to groups of boats chiming.  

The other thing that was really cool about the second hour was this hawk we saw.  It was perched up on... something I don't know the name of.  It was sitting on its nest.  When we saw it, we got closer and she started screeching at us.  Whoops!!  I tried to paddle away but the waves of a boat rocked my kayak so my panic mode came on as I tried to stay afloat.  It's quite comical how my body reacts to situations.  The hawk did not attack us.  I think we'd have to get closer for that to happen.  This was another incidence when I wished I had my camera.  Had my camera been on hand, I would have to be careful that flash was turned off so that I wouldn't trigger a reaction in hawk mama.  Ha.  Maybe it was for the better after all, knowing me. 

My camera creeping on the old guys drinking beer in the water.  Doesn't that look fun?  A lot of people were sitting on stationary boats, partying.  It seemed like it might be more fun for the boat to be moving, but who knows, maybe I have to understand local culture better to "get it."

I had a lot of fun, we ended up kayaking for two and a half hours.  Although I would have been perfectly satisfied after kayaking for an hour.  So now I know for down the road, unless the area is spectacular or there's some destination to explore, an hour's rental would be sufficient.  These preferences will be different for everyone, of course., so take that with a grain of salt  :)

Lake Tahoe

I've been thinking about South Lake Tahoe for the past few days.  Not sure how much this trips fits in with my blog, seeing that it's not easy to replicate this experience, and if you were to, it would not actually be cheap.  A friend used to let us borrow his vacation house on occasion, which is right on the shore of Lake Tahoe, where there aren't that many other houses (compared to the North Shore).  Lake Tahoe is beautiful, as you can see, but what I like so much about it is that it's surrounded by gorgeous mountains.  Other than living in a rental house for free, we usually eat in (it's more fun to cook in a gorgeous kitchen) except for one meal at Burger Lounge (try their garlic fries!) and except for an afternoon shopping trip, most of our activities have only cost gas and time.

Emerald Bay from Vikingsholm

Emerald Bay from Inspiration Vista Point

Emerald Bay at nearly sunset

Lower Eagle Falls overlooking Emerald Bay and Lake Tahoe in the back

Eagle Falls

Eagle Falls

Eagle Falls

The hike up to Eagle Falls was pretty quick, like 15 minutes, and the payoff was amazing.  It makes a difference when you visit.  The waterfalls are all in this area all depend on the snow to melt.  As a result, June is probably the best time to visit because it's warm enough for more snow to melt.  Once when I was there, I saw the mountaintop covered with snow in the beginning of the trip but by the end, there was barely any snow left.  The snow provides a beautiful contrast with the mountains.

My nephew, luckily the second time around he chose to pose in a safer location

Lower Glen Alpine Falls, near Fallen Leaf Lake

Lower Glen Alpine Falls

Fallen Leaf Lake

Rainbow Trail

House

A view of Pope Beach from the dock

Almost sunset on the dock

Flowers of Oak Ridge Reservation

I went on a few spring wildflower hikes, one at Haw Ridge Park, Frozen Head State Park and Oak Ridge Reservation.  The best of them all was at Oak Ridge Reservation which I wrote about last time, but did not post pictures of the flowers.  What set this trip apart from a trip to Haw Ridge with my housemate and another guided hike at Frozen Head was that there were flowers here that I did not see elsewhere.  In addition, the guided tour was very educational and the lack of trail added variety.  Unfortunately, being on a guided hike with a group of people, I didn't have time to assure all of the pictures were in focus, but here they are:

succulents!

These below were the highlight of the hike.  At the end of the hike we got to this cave that is only visible when the water levels are low.  Along the walls of the cave was a "cave covering" of these gorgeous delicate white flowers.  Mixed in with the white flowers were these beautiful purple flowers.  The problem with posting entries 6 weeks afterward is that the names of all these flowers escape me.  Sorry!

Dreaming of Utah

Yes, I said Utah.  It started almost 3 years ago when we visited my mom's friends in Seattle and they just came back from a trip to Utah and raved about how beautiful it was.  I was like, "Utah???"  Really?  For vacation??  What's in Utah?  Just like the way people say, "Iowa???"  or "Tennessee" when I tell people where I went to college, or where I work now.  So I looked into what was in Utah.  Do you know what's in Utah?  There is A LOT OF STUFF IS IN UTAH!!  Sorry, for the all-caps, I'll try to compose myself.

Arches National Park
Photo: Jim Karczewski - National Park Service

The two national parks I'm most interested in visiting is Arches National Park and Zion National Park.  Super recently I came across a picture of Arches National Park, but I don't know where.  As for Zion National Park, I came across a picture of it on Budget Travel's feature 12 Most Beautiful Paths: No Car Required.  Most were hiking trails but there were biking trails too.  Sometimes I think that interesting land formations are more beautiful than beaches.  Then I see a picture of a beach and think, "Well, not to say that beaches are ugly.."  Anyway, all of that was to say that I find land formations to be fascinating and gorgeous.

Two Utah locations on my radar meant that I wanted to see how close they were to each other.  So I had an adventure on Google Maps.  Those are fun.  And totally cheap.  All it takes is time and internet connection.  After talking with my special someone we mapped out a dream itinerary.  It requires a lot of vacation time probably and it would be a long while before we could do it.  If you're reading this, feel free to hijack our dream itinerary, all I ask is you report back so we know how to plan our trip better!

Zion National Park
Photo: Tom Putnak - National Park Service

Itinerary:
Driving time: 21 hours and 34 minutes, if stayed on route and skipped "Along the way" destinations.  If you wanted to fast track from Arches National Park to Zion National Park, you can save an hour and nine minutes by staying on 1-70 and then onto 1-15.  Then you would drive through Manti-La Sal National Forest and Fishlake National Forest.

• A. Salt Lake City Airport
• B. Arches National Park
• Along the way: (On top of the 21:34 hours)
• Capital Reef National Park
• Carcass Canyon Wilderness Study Area
• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
• Kodachrome Basin State Park
• Bryce Canyon National Park
• Dixie National Forest
• C. Zion National Park
• D. Grand Canyon-North Rim
• E. Hoover Dam
• F. Las Vegas Airport

View Larger Map

The reason why you would start at Salt Lake City and end in Vegas is if you wanted a one-way rental car, rental car companies would prefer cars to move toward populated areas, instead of remote.  Sometimes, you can't even rent a rental car if your destination is considered remote.  Originally, I wanted to fly into Grand Junction since it's the closest major city to Arches National Park, but one-way rental cars were $800+ a week.  After playing around with other starting points, I found that starting at Salt Lake City's airport would cost $655/week, but $350+/week if you rented the car from town.  If you enjoy driving, then you could find a rental car a lot cheaper if you return it to the same destination.  Especially from Vegas, I've seen around $10 per day in Vegas.  After seeing these prices, we decided that we're definitely waiting until we're 25 so we don't have to pay outrageous underage driver fees.

Arches National Park
Photo: Tom Gray - National Park Service

One way tickets can be expensive sometimes (and other times they don't charge you a premium for booking only one-ways), but since this trip was a way of using my mileage, I searched and found one-way flights for 12.5k miles.  Leaving from Las Vegas, we thought we'd take Southwest and then skip baggage fees.

The major destinations of this trip were Arches National Park and Zion National Park, but since the Las Vegas airport was nearby, we added Grand Canyon's North Rim and Hoover Dam to the itinerary.  Most people who visit Grand Canyon see the South Rim (not coincidentally that's the rim both of us saw).  I've been to Hoover Dam before, didn't think much of it, but when you're with a nerdy engineer, I guess you have to visit these things.  :P

Erin's Meadow Herb Farm

I've been thinking about starting a garden.  So when I heard about a spring herb festival happening at Erin's Meadow Herb Farm, I wanted to seize the opportunity to check it out.  Turns out that this place was only 10-15 minutes away even though it's located in Clinton, TN.  It required driving up the steep ridge and then sliding down almost recklessly, but nonetheless, a pleasant drive.  I like visiting shops during busy days because when there's a festival, I can count on there to be a lot of other people.  Since I find it awkward to browse a nearly empty store and receive undivided attention from the store owner, when I usually don't have much intention to spend money, these events are the solution to my dilemma.  At this spring herb festival, there was a cooking demonstration, a few booths and a lot of people.

Funny story: at work, one of my projects is on our workplace sustainability employee and community engagement team.  So last fall there was a craft fair at work, so we had the idea to organize a display of sustainable crafts.  Someone wanted to display their fairy garden and none of us had heard of it before.

"Does the crafter believe a real fairy lives in it?"

Hahahhahha I mean, that was a real question.  So later we learned what a fairy garden was.  They're essentially small gardens with miniature furniture to make it look fit for a fairy to live in:

This lizard was totally trying to creep on the fairies!!

I was enamored with the themed gardens!  What a great way of categorizing different types of gardens, as a marketing tool and as a live demonstration.  Aside from the ones below, there was also a kitchen herb garden, butterfly garden, and a few others that I don't remember.