Fun Muddy Mess

Happy New Year!!  We started out with a hike at the Eno River.  My sister, Mary, had the day off so she joined us.  I did not know it is an annual tradition.  Luckily, we arrived early and missed the large crowds. We had a lot of rain last weekend that apparently all ran off down to the trail.  It started out very muddy. Mary only ended up on her butt once, but ended up sitting on a log as she went down.  She was crossing over a downed tree and did the splits as her feet slid in the mud.  I think we all almost went down at least twice!  It was still a blast though!!

This is the highest I've seen the river so far.  I'm sure there have been many, many times it has been higher.  I just haven't seen it this high before. 

We were going to hike along part of the Mountain to Sea trail, but there are no bathrooms along the way, it was cold and I figured there would be too many people and not enough tree coverage to use the woods. Bathrooms are a must since mom always makes sure to have coffee ready for me when I arrive at their house.   We decided to do two short loops instead.  The first was Pea Creek Trail.  The second loop was Dunnagan Trail.  We found this cool cemetery along Dunnagan.  It made us wonder how many other interesting sites we have missed along the way

Cool cemetery we found along the trail.  Looks like it dates back to the 1800's

I'm guessing this wall is part of the "historic pump station" that is on the Dunnagan trail.  I'm going to have to do more research on the history of this park.  There are a lot of points of interest here.  

My favorite part of the river is listening to the water rush over all of the rocks and boulders.  It's so easy to leave behind all of the stresses of life out here and get lost in the beauty of it all.

Mary was kickin' some butt out here!  She quit smoking (go girl!!) about 3 weeks ago and she said it has made a huge difference.  Hopefully we can get out more on the weekends together.  The low is supposed to be 16 Friday night and rain on Sunday so I doubt it'll be this weekend.  A cold front is moving in next week so I'm not sure if we'll be able to get out.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

 Wishing everyone peace, health and happiness in the New Year....