Tag: hiking

Hiking On Mobry Mountain with Chia

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia20 Comments

Hi, It me, Chia! I finally got to go somewhere with Mom that no one else got to go. Mom took just me in the car and we went on an adventure!! So I asked her to share it with all my friends here. She said Nature Friday would be the perfect place, so here we are. Hope you’re here too!!!

Y’all know who Miss Jentry is, right? She’s my favorite person in the whole world!!! She asked Mom to go hiking with her, so brother Andrew tagged along (it was going to be a girls’ hike, but that’s ok, we love Andrew too.) We went to a nearly mountain, only about 15 minutes from our house. It’s called Mobry Mountain and is part of the Appalachian chain. I’m told it’s a small mountain, as mountains go, but it sure looked big to me!

For the hike I got to wear 2 different harnesses with 2 different leashes. Mom said it’s cause she loves me, and that it’s fashionable, but I think it’s cause I slipped my harness and ran the neighborhood the other day during a walk. We weren’t really walking when it happened…Mom was visiting with Miss Pam just up the road and didn’t notice when real fast-like I turned around and pulled the harness up over my head. She noticed as soon as the harness hit the ground, but I was already in full run mode by then. Just thought I’d explain in case you noticed that in the pictures.

OK, back to our hike. *tail wags*. We drove up the mountain, but not to the top. A good ways up there was a park with a hiking trail. All the peeps took turns holding onto my leash(es).

We hiked through the woods for a while. I didn’t even pull on my leash(es)! This was all so different for me. I’d never been taken hiking before. Mom wouldn’t go near the edge of this drop-off. She’s ascared of heights. And I stayed away from it too with Miss Jentry.

If you look close at his next picture, you can see the alligator rock laying on another rock.

Way in the background on the left you can see the two towers at the nuclear power plant that’s just a few miles from where we live. When Mom had her pontoon boat, she would sometimes go up there, cause it sits right on the Tennessee River. The water was always much warmer there, and once she saw a fish with 3 eyes!! (Mom never went in the water near there.)

Then we got into an area that had a great big ship embedded in the rock. We all walked through the cutout in the huge rock.

Here I am with bro Andrew. I’ve hear that there’s a place called Fat Man’s Squeeze up at Rock City that’s a lot like this.

I finally got to the other side and got to walk with Miss Jentry.

I guess that’s it for the story of my first hike. I sure hope I get to go hiking again! Oh, hey, Thanks to Sunny (and Rosy) of The LLB Life for hosting Nature Friday!

Xena’s Shared Sunday Selfie

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia17 Comments

Thanks to The Cat on My Head for hosting Sunday selfies!

This morning, before it got hot, me and Mommy and Miss Jentry (Andrew’s girlfriend) and my sisters all went on a long walk on the trails at a place not far from where we live. The place is called the Greenway. It must have at least 87 miles of trails and 2 dog parks. We ‘splored a coupla “off the main track trails.” One of them dead-ended at a tiny, make-shift beach facing North Chickamauga Creek. Here’s the picture Mommy took of us.

In this picture you can see how blue the sky is and the trees reflecting green on the creek. Do you see our shadows?
To the left is the small area where you can actually walk into the water if you want to (we didn’t want to). Everywhere else is a drop-off.

This is the same picture, but a close-up so that it could be my Sunday Selfie. I told my sisters to look away, cause it’s my selfie.

I have to go eat my supper now, so wishing y’all a good Sunday!
Xena Schnauzer Warrior Hiking Princess

Nature Friday at Greenway (again)

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia17 Comments

We are joining Arty, Jakey, Rosy and Sunny of the LLB Gang with much thanks for hosting Nature Friday.

After our grand adventure at the Greenway last week, Mommy took us back the next day to try another trail off the main path. This trail started out with a sign saying the Boy Scouts had created it. That sounded promising, right? Well, sorta. Soon after we started along it, it started to climb. Not as steeply as the day before, but we were definitly going up.

The sun was shining in between the trees and everything was either green or brown. Once again, Mommy let go of our leashes and let us lead the way. Lucy didn’t want to get too far from Mom, so it was me who led. Before long, the path narrowed as the trees closed in.

We saw off to our left a huge tree that was uprooted. All the dirt was still on the roots, so we think it must not have fallen over too long ago.

The trail finally leveled out and me and Lucy, we both decided we wanted to be really close to Mommy. The problem was that she kept tripping over us or stepping on our leashes. You should have seen the nice little dances she did to avoid falling. Except once. She did fall once and her right ankle twisted just a little and she landed on the palms of her hands. We both were worried she got hurt and ran to her to see if she was ok. She said, “You know, girls, if I fall out here in the middle of nowhere and get hurt, it could be days before anyone found us.” (She wasn’t hurt.) So, thinking about all the meals we would miss in that time, we were much more careful — especially after Mommy said we would need to let her lead the way so we weren’t in her way.

We saw a lot of trees that had fallen over and were rotting, along with some that were rotting while still standing in place.

That one on the right scared Mommy and she hurried us past it.

There were a couple of signs with the word “Trail” and pointing which way to go. One was at a point where we could have gone kinda to the right and definitely up. As we started to go back down we got to a big downed log that had been cut in the middle to make a couple of steps.

That was nice. It was kinda like finding a present out in the middle of what seemed like nowhere.

The trail eventually led back down to the start of the trail we followed the day before. That explained the part of the trail where we could have turned to keep going up. We’re all getting to know the trails better, but there are a lot more to explore. We’ll save those for another day.

*wiggles and wags*

Xena Schnauzer Warrior Princess

Nature Friday at the Greenway

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia32 Comments

We are joining Arty, Jakey, Rosy and Sunny of the LLB Gang with much thanks for hosting Nature Friday.

We found some wild flowers–or maybe weeds–growing along our driveway. We are going to call them wild violets and wild daisies. We don’t know if that’s right, but it sounds good to us.

Mommy’s been trying to take us to the Greenway every day. Yesterday was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and the afternoon temperatures in the low 60’s F. We love when Daddy comes too, but it’s really more fun when it’s just us and Mommy. She’s got an adventurous side that borders on dangerous, and that gets our blood running. Well, that, and she walks a lot faster when it’s just us. Yesterday’s adventure also got our heart rates up and our tongues hanging down. We took a side dirt trail going up. And up. And up. There were rocks and roots and downed trees to navigate. It was all woods on either side of us and not another soul in sight, dog or peep or squirrel or bear or coyote or…

Lucy: Xena, that’s enough. Just tell our story.

Xena: You’re no fun. Anyhoo. we passed some branch-offs and we asked to take the first one to the left, but Mommy said, “Let’s keep climbing and see where we end up.” She finally let go of our leashes and said we would all have to walk a little slower to get her heart rate down. So we did. Me and Lucy, we listen really good on our walks. We all kept thinking that around the next corner, the trail would start to go down again. Nope. Maybe around the next corner, and so on. It just kept climbing, and so did we. After we had climbed what felt like 87 miles we met a man coming down the trail and Mommy asked him where it went. He said it kept getting steeper and went to the top of Big Ridge. Now, I know you don’t know what Big Ridge is, but believe me, even the drive up it is steep and like a snake.

With that info, Mommy finally decided we would turn around and head back down. “Are we going home?” we both asked, and for emphasis, we both started coughing.

“Let’s keep walking the main trail loop around to the car. Then we’ll go home and I’ll fix your dinners,” she said.

All we heard was dinner, so we were definitely with that program.

We got to the giant tree that was laying across the path. On the way up the mountain big hill, I showed Lucy how to jump up on it to get across. This time Lucy went first. I jumped up behind her, but I wanted to see more, so I moved up.

I thought she was holding her tail up so I could walk under her. I didn’t realize it was because she saw something interesting. Then I saw Mommy had her phone camera pointing at us.

You want to take my picture ’cause I’m the cutest thing you ever saw?
OK, I’m saying “cheese!”

After Mommy managed to get over the big tree, she saw why she couldn’t get Lucy to look at the phone camera. There was another man with a big black lab coming up the mountain hill. The end.

Lucy: That wasn’t a good ending. You left everything hanging.

Xena: But…

Lucy: The guy detoured around us, we walked another 87 miles. On the way a couple stopped us so the lady could pet me *wags!* and asked what schnauzers were like. After Mom bored her half to death with long details, we finished the trail, drove home and had dinner. The end.

Xena: Well that was anti-climatic. I’ve gotta teach you how to tell a good story.

We wish you a happy Nature Friday! Xena and Lucy