Cumberland Gal Cover Photo and Updates
Current Cover Photo is looking up at the back of the Rat Castle from Thursday Dec. 26, 2024.
Went riding with new friend Rick Timm and Kenny, my sweet husband. We had such a great time. Trip report pending.
Above is a photo of the East Fork River in Autumn along the River trail.
New Blog Entry--Navigation Tools & Systems for Four Wheeling
Below: Kenny Koogler with a paper copy of Royal Blue way back in the day.
Upcoming Plans
Home
We have been doing home fixer uppers with "we" being mostly Kenny with me helping and Jared helping some. He replaced the entire downstairs floor with beautiful laminate. It looks nice. It's cleaner and up to date. We purged a BUNCH of stuff from the furnace room and got organized.
Swedish Death Cleaning! Lots of stuff to recycle, take to the dump, take to donate. Some is Jared & Lydia's and is going to the shed. Went from 19 totes down to 14.
Kenny bought me a beautiful new entryway cabinet for my books and camera gear. We have all the Christmas stuff put away neatly.
We are putting a 1/2 bath in the downstairs. It is in the huge amount of space freed up in the furnace room! It was plumbed for a full bath when the house was constructed, but up until now we never fooled with it. We don't need another shower downstairs.
Content:
I will continue to focus on visiting the areas that pertain to the Little Tennessee River watershed and include them in Valley So Wild blog series.
Lord willing, I plan to book my 2025 Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage to Jamestown, TN.
Camping or staying with Sharon. Hunting wildflowers, waterfalls, caves, mushrooms, and getting into mischief with my new right knee!
I plan to continue my Hybrid Trillium Research in 2025 by going to Alpine Mountain and the Blue Ridge Parkway in Western NC. Hoping to get up with Wally and Cathy and stay at Adventure Village to camp for at least a long weekend. Fingers crossed!
Health:
I had my right knee replaced Tuesday Jan. 21, 2025. I am sore, but doing much better than last go round. I start therapy tomorrow.
Hearing from Readers of my blog
I get emails or text messages from readers now and then. I always enjoy hearing from them. I've made some good friends. I've gotten ideas that have greatly improved Cumberland Gal. Going over things like directions or trip reports with readers trying to help them often jogs my memory. It causes me to recall places I've wanted to go. I sometimes think I've created directions to a place when in fact I have not. It gives me a chance to remedy that. The readers are part of my inspiration for what I do. Though I don't give specific directions to every place I visit I sometimes will if asked privately through messenger or email. An example was a recent request for a "general address" for the Rock Creek Double Trestle.
