St Louis

This weekend Michele and I went to St Louis with her friend Sandra. I worked half a day on Friday then we flew out of Fairhope at 2:00. We arrived 2 hours later in Eureka and picked up the rental cars. After checking into the hotel Michele and I went to a nearby trail and hiked 3 miles. Hilda Young Conservation area:

On th way back to the hotel I found a tick crawling on my arm. When we got to the hotel I found one on the car seat. We checked eachother and didn't find any so we thought we were clear. We get in the room and Michele finds one on her foot so we put our clothes in the tub to isolate them and go to dinner. When we get back I get in the shower and find one on my foot and one on Michele's pants in the shower so Michele and I checked each other again and even searched each others scalps. So I thought we were clear then Michele finds one on her should when she went to work Monday. I have never had a tick on me before this was rediculous. Saturday morning we got up early and went to the farmer's market in St Louis to look around and eat breakfast.

Next we drove to the waterfront and went to the Gateway Arch. We were told to get there early and I am glad we did. There was no line when we got there and lines all over when we left. You ride up in a "pod" on a track like a rollercoaster that goes to an observation area at the top.

Next we walked across the street to the historic courthouse and watched a movie about the Dred Scott trials. Next we walked across the Historic Eads Bridge to Illinois and back.

Just north of the bridge is a historic distric with lots of restraunts so we grabed a bite of lunch

We decided to spend the hottest part of the day inside so we went to REI and did some shopping and climbed the rock wall. We had climbed three sides and the last side was crazy hard with overhangs and junk but somehow Michele talked me into trying it so I spent like 20 min hanging on by my fingertips doing chinups trying to find purchase on this wall. My arms hurt for days. I could bearly grip the steering wheel or feed myself Monday.

Next we went to Forest Park and looked around. We must have seen a dozen weddings all going on at the same time in different places in the park. There were brides and everywhere. We rented row boats rowed around the park. When we got to the boat we told the girl that we didn't know what we were doing. That cazy girl put us in the boat backwards. As I am rowing away from the bock one of the other workers yells and we get the boat turned around but how could that girl not know where the front of the boats was?? So Michele ends up rowing but she can't get it to go straight so we figured it was because her right arm was stronger than her left. Half way through we switch and I can't go straight either. That's when we figured out one of the oars was twisted in the oarlock. So rowing was interesting but it would have been better if the oar hadn't been twisted.

We could have stayed in the park for Shakespeare but it had been a pretty long day so we went back to Eureka and found a little Italian restraunt.Sunday we went to the dog show. This was my first dog show so it was neat to see. I enjoyed playing with the dogs and helping the handlers to ferry the dogs to and from the RV. It was an outdoor show so the handlers got hot running the dogs around the rings but we stayed pretty compfotable under the tents. i especially enjoyed watching the junior handlers. they were so cute showing their dogs. Most of the dogs won breed but none of them won group so we left early and arranged for the plane to leave early. it was nice to get home at a decent hour and over all I give the trip an A+.

SEREA part 2

On Saturday night James signed us up to go to Berry-Hill. Saturday morning we got up a little earlier and met up with a group going to the cave. When we got there we got suited up a hiked a little ways to the entrance. Just inside the entrance the ground slopes shaply down to a 70 foot pit. At the bottom of the pit is a 30 foot tall cone of dirt and stuff that has fallen in the pit including some animals that wandered in and slid down the slope. We saw bones of a donkey or something and apparently there was a dog that was pretty fresh and still had his collar on and stuff but I didn't see it. Anyway if you stayed to the side you could crawl along a ledge and stay off the slope and repel into the pit from a 90 foot ledge. So we all repeled down and went down the debris cone into a large room, up some large breakdown and then down a 15 foot drop with a hand line. Next we follwed the stream back to crawl that opened up to a sump then came back and ascended up our rope.
Jason getting on rope



Ryan on rope

Ryan and Aimee working hard to keep their feet dryComing down the handline

SERA part 1

Last weekend Jason and I went to the SERA summer caving festival in Bristol TN. We drove up Thursday and set-up the camper. We were not expecting to have any kind of hook-up because the campground is just a big hay field but arround the perimeter there were a few power poles and water hook-ups so since we got there early we were able to score power and water. This was a major coup because is was very hot and we were lovin our AC. Next we hit vendor row and I mean we hit it hard. There arn't too many caving stores in south Alabama(none actually)so we had a lot of gear that we needed to upgrade. Before the weekend was over we had new cave suits, caving shorts, knee pads, Jason got elbow pads, foot loops, cowtails, we each got some t-shirts, new packs, a carabiner and we had already gotten new boots and Jason had a new helmet and headlamp since his went down Stephens Gap. We were the best looking cavers there for sure. Joey, Aimee and James came up later that night and set their tents up close to us. Saturday morning we slept in and were slow to get moving so didn't get to the cave we wanted to do which was a 135 foot pit because it was too far away. So we got directions and headed over to Worley's Cave which is all horizontal but only 15 min away. We were told it is the "Tumbling Rock of the south" or something. So we get up there and get all our shiny new gear on and go in the top entrance. My first impression was mud, a lot of mud. People kept falling on their rear ends. All these technical cavers falling down on flat ground it was great. This one guy we ran into fell on his hip so hard I swear the cave shook. I thought we were carrying him out for sure. Then as we got further into the cave we saw some reallycool formations. We followed this passage back as far as we could. We got to a squeeze and James made it through but his pants did not. We decided at that point that we had gone far enough. As we were heading back we ran into a group with a local caver and hs showed us a connection so we could pass over to the stream passage. We followed that passage back. Below are some pics from the cave:

Ryan and Aimee in the stream passage. As you can see the water was pretty deep in places.

Jason got his gear muddy

Ryan and Jason coming out of the crawl at the end of the dry passage

Aimee inside of a massive formation

Man vrs Beast

This weekend Jason went SCUBA diving with his friend Larry for Jefferson Davis's birthday. They were spearfishing at about 110 feet. Larry had a 25Lb snapper and Jason had a sheep's head on their stringers when out of the depths came a shark looking for a snack. Larry, a sensible man, tossed his fish and made for the boat. The shark, hungry for more came after Jason. It was coming up at him nipping at his fins. Jason was kicking at him and hit him with the butt of his gun but since his gun wasn't loaded that was all he could do. The shark circled around and came back at him. Jason managed to get one band pulled back on the spear gun and attach the power head. As the shark was coming up at him he shot it right on the money spot on the top of his head but...the bang stick did not go off. The shark swam off but Jason knew he'd be back. So Jason pulled 2 bands back on the gun and took off after him. The shark came at him, mouth open for the kill. Jason shot him right through his open jaws. The shark was stunned but still alive. Jason took advantage of his stupor and made for the boat. He handed the gun to Larry and climbed aboard. It was at this time the the shark began to fight in earnest. Jason managed to capture this image before they released the shark to save the boat.

Taekwondo School

Here are some random pics of my students that I took while I was teaching class one day.

Josephine

Last weekend Jason and I stayed at Joey Stucky's family's beach house in Josephine. While jason and Joey went grocery shopping Aimee and I went kayaking and then we paddled again in the morning while the guys were getting up and getting their coffee. Here is Aimee coming back in to the beach.

Frick's Cave and Stephen's Gap

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37733251@N00/sets/72157603851292094/

Here is a link to some pics from our January trip to Fricks cave and Stephen's Gap

Florida Panhandle

I am still struggling to get caught up on my posting. These are some pics from our Thanksgiving trip last year. We went down the Florida panhandle and camped in Panacea right on the water. We now have a TV and DVD player hooked up in the camper. It rained every night so we would hang out in the camper and watch movies at night and drink our coffe and watch the news in the morning 'till it cleared up then we could go paddle. It was pretty windy wo we struggled to find protected waters. The first place we paddled was the St. Marks north of natural bridge(the place where the river runs underground then reamerges agin to the south). It was perfect. Very sheltered and the water was very clear.
We also went to the Ochlockonee which was protected and had beautiful scenery but the water was not clear and not much wildlife. Jason did some fishing but didn't catch anything.

Above is an otter feeding at the Wacissa. The Wacissa is beautiful, full of wildlife but not as protected as we would have liked. Below is Big Blue Hole. This spring is about 45 feet deep and the water here is crystal clear and bright blue. While we were there, some folks came in a canoe and dove the spring. Now Jason is hankering to get back there with some dive gear and check it out. The spring is off the river a little bit and protected from the wind so we sat here and ate our lunch.
Thanksgiving dinner in "The Pearl"