fave hikes: cabelands

Sometimes I am full of really good ideas. Like the time that I decided to quit my super cushy tech job and go to grad school, which is resulting in "the summer of being totally broke", which, as much as I would like it to mean that L and I stay inside and get our money's worth out of my parent's netflix subscription...means that we're turning to the great outdoors.

Which leads me to my not-sarcastic-good idea!

L and I are going to do all the trails in the triangle this summer! And then I'm going to blog about them.

So, first up, the Cabelands trail at the Eno.

L wouldn't take a picture with me, but she consented to take a picture of me.  it was slightly too much to ask to get the whole sign. 

The funny story is this is not the hike I wanted to do. I wanted to do the portion of the Mountians-to-Sea trail (MST) that Aspen showed us, which is right next to the beginning of the Cabelands trail, but is significantly less traveled, but L wanted to do Cabelands, so what the heck.

I feel like I should be able to caption this, "new growth forest" or something. 

I love that we live so close to a place like this. 

a brief respite.

The Eno was raging this morning, after the tropical storm of Thursday and Friday. We didn't make it to the Quarry, which is attached to this trail. Maybe another time this summer. 

can you spot her between the mountain laurel?

L is a rocking hiker. I can't wait until she can carry a pack. The problem is, she's about 5 times faster than I am, so I can't even use her as an excuse to walk slowly. And I'm a slow hiker. I'd like to claim something like stamina, or whatever, but really I'm just slow. What's the rush? Next time we'll take L's friends, who have 3 year old little siblings. That's about my pace on these hikes.

Cabelands was a perfect almost-an-hour hike for us. I would have liked to have added the quarry trail (next time!) but we weren't prepared for swimming anyway, and the Eno was a'raging today. We started at 9:30, and by 10:30 we were hot and sticky. So maybe my hiking-tour-of-the-Piedmont through the summer isn't the best idea? but we'll try.

We grabbed a map of all the eno trails on the way out. Project time!, if I get my shit together.

Other little things:
+Started grad school last week. Woo. It's up and down. I'm excited about everything, I'm depressed at how little I know, and then I see a band on a gel and I'm like LIFE IS SO GREAT. It is an adventure.
+I finally washed my Chacos in the washing machine, and holy shit, that is a life-changing experience. they are so fresh and so clean-clean, and now I don't need to worry about stinking out everyone when I wear them in public. The WASHING machine, who knew? (I know, you did, so don't say you told me so, please.) (Also way better than the idea of sticking my Toms in the -80 at work to kill bacteria. See 'cushy tech job', above.) So now the chacos are getting washed every two weeks with the towels, and little by little my life is getting slightly less stinky. Ain't nobody got time for that.

update: project time!